Ring Raider
by Jennifer Jolie
Summary: WE HAVE UPDATED. What happens when our favourite Tomb Raider drops into Middle Earth? (Co-written with Clarenova and Constance)
1. Stupid aka Out of the Sky

"The world is changing.  
  
I can feel it in the air.  
  
I can feel it in the water.  
  
Then she appeared." (reading but not saying it out loud)  
  
"Miss Lara, may I trouble you for –"  
  
BANG.  
  
Winston immediately threw up his tea tray by instinct. A single 9mm shot off the amazingly durable metal (must be British quality) and joined fourteen others in the floor.  
  
"Winston, how many times must I remind you not to interrupt me when I'm reading. You know the consequences." A posh feminine upper-class British accent cut through the stunned (though you'd think he'd catch on by now) silence, laced with irritation and a hint of amusement. Without looking up from her book, the speaker put down her slim Beretta and turned a page with a practiced hand. Expected after finishing all the three books and the movie script from the Internet. "And let me remind you it was YOUR idea, after all, to enjoy literature." She rolled her eyes. Secretly she rather fancied the books but not much.  
  
Just enough to read and stuff them down the toilet instead of Winston's throat later. Already a very dazed plumber had extracted several copies of The Chronicles of Narnia.  
  
"Miss Lara, would you like a cup of-"  
  
BANG.  
  
Winston beat a hasty retreat.  
  
~*~  
  
The fellowship trudged out of Imladris, making their way to the mountain peaks of Carahdras; lugging along a rather odd company.  
  
A Slivan elf, an elf raised human, a man of Gondor, four hobbits, a wizard and a pony. Throw in a grumpy dwarf and it completed the society of the Moody Fellowship.  
  
Out of nowhere…  
  
"Strider! Will we have elevensies? Or tea? Or supper?" A muttered combination of elf man and wizard could be heard muttering, 'fool of a took'.  
  
When all of a sudden, somebody dropped out of the sky…  
  
~*~  
  
THUMP.  
  
~*~  
  
"I swear, I don't know how I got here," growled Lara as she slowly stepped backwards only to bump into a tree. Damn woods.  
  
There was an arrow at her head, Anduril at her neck, an axe raised, four Hobbit daggers point first and a large oak staff all about to kill her. She may have hundreds of lives in the comp but gee, this is Middle Earth you know.  
  
There was a hushed whisper, "Mary Sue."  
  
"We must eliminate her, before she becomes one-"  
  
"But she does not look like one of them-"  
  
"She hardly looks like anything-"  
  
"It's a *SHE*?!!"  
  
"Ellesar! Appearances can be deceiving, as we have learnt…"  
  
"I say we kill her now and get on with it. The last one was bad enough."  
  
"SHE?!!"  
  
Lara, in the meantime, is staring with disgust at Gimli.  
  
"Do you ever clean that thing?"  
  
Sorry. She was staring at the axe.  
  
"I mean, if you kill me, you could at least do it in a gentlemanly manner. After all, that's not way to treat a lady."  
  
Gandalf is making strange signals with the staff (So he's not going to club me with it). Suddenly he lets out a loud gasp.  
  
"I.. I know what this creature is! But they do not speak of it!! It is a vile and wicked creature called a *Barbie Doll*!!!!!!"  
  
Lara smacked her head against the tree.  
  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
  
Gimli is of course staring at her - erm… slightly below shoulder area with sick fascination. He's not the only one.  
  
"Oh look!" breathed a very excited Frodo. "Is that some new kind of chain mail?"  
  
~*~  
  
We hoped ya liked that. Chapter two will show up later. 


	2. Not good

Ring Raider P2 ::Written by Clarenova::   


A/N: I am not a Tomb Raider fan, I only specialize in the LotR parts. Jennifer Jolie wrote the first part, so if the LotR parts there were messed, sorry. Any TR fans reading this, if I jumble Lara's character, forgive me. ~ 'Nova 

* 

Lara's POV 

_Oh si-ck._

_Mental note to self : Kill freaky short midgets at next bloody chance. Oh, and clobber that git who called me a Barbie-doll. Give him chinese water torture for all I care._

_Waaaaaaaait._

_4 short people with freakishly curly hair._

_1 fat dude who has a sick mind that waves around a piece of metal attached to a stick._

_Some guy waving around some big blade that is annoyingly sharp._

_Some fool with a shield that is 4 times bigger than it ought to be._

_Some guy with long *blond* hair who has a couple of dangerously *sharp* arrows pointed at my head._

_A doddering old man pointing a stick a me._

_Shit._

_I'm in hobbitland._

_Second mental note to self : Kill Winston for making me read that stuff at next possible opening._

_*_

Back to third person POV. 

* 

Lara slowly reached down to her hostlers (once again, all Tomb raider fans, please don't kill me), grabbed her pistols (see other A/N), kneed Gimli hard and kicked Frodo aside as she did a jump and whirled around. The end situation was like this. 

Lara : One pistol at elf-boy's forehead, the other at Strider-person's neck. Main problems : Two simultaneously strung arrows pointed at head, one axe, three swords and 4 daggers aimed at various parts of body. Minor problems : Unable to clobber old man. Unable to clobber garden gnome. Unable to chuck curly haired idiot half way to mars. All in all : Have been through worse. But that was the computer game. This could prove a problem... 

Aragorn : Anduril was at that *Barbie-dolls* neck, and a constant pressure was being applied. Oh, and there was that little problem of a metal object at his neck. But how much damage could that do? 

Legolas : Debating whether to be alarmed at metal at neck. Am elf, so cannot be alarmed. If Haldir could see us now... 

Gandalf : Will report to Galadriel. Will report to Elrond. Will chuck any barbie doll *shudder* look-a-like off Caradhras. 

Pippin : Why are we attacking her? She looks... Okay. Maybe she doesn't look so innocent after all. But she might have food... 

Merry : I'm hungry. 

Frodo : I hate the ring. I wish that it had never come to me. *breaks down* 

Sam : I hate the ring. I wish it had never come to him. *breaks down* 

Gimli : Mental note to self : Find a female dwarf before I get into trouble. 

Boromir : What's a barbie doll? 

Sigh. 

* 

Lara's POV 

* 

_I wish I had some backup here._

**_Small voice in back of head : Wish granted._**

**_*POP*_**

Alex West (So I'm following the Tomb Raider movie. Don't kill me) appear out of nowhere, fully armed, and rightfully confused. 

_What the heck!?_

**_Small voice in back of head : Think of me as the invisible wish granter. 1 down, 4 to go. Wishes I mean._**

_Oh. And of all the people and the world, you had to choose him._

**_Small voice in back of head : I can leave if you want me to..._**

_I want some uzis. And some, check that, a lot of ammo to go round._

**_Small voice in back of head : 3 down, 2 to go._**

*POP* 

Lara's backpack appeared, stuffed full of ammo. 2 Uzis lay beside it 

_Okay... I'll save the 2 for later. Until then, buzz off!_

**_Small voice in back of head : I'm so unloved. *POP*_**

**_*_**

'Lara? LARA! WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING HERE?' 

'Hello Alex. Welcome to Middle-Earth. Could do with a little help here. Do first ask later. In simple words, you're in hobbit-land.' 

*** 

No flame!


	3. Oh dear

Ring Raider P3 ::Still written by Clarenova:: 

*   
Alex's POV   
* 

_Hobbit-land? Where the HECK is that? Hobbit? Wait. Have I been sucked into some mad Lord of the Rings movie? Wait, I **am **in a movie. Wait. Ah, screw it._

_To leave Lara or not to leave Lara. That is the question. Which only has one answer. Dammit._

*   
Third person POV   
* 

Alex, out of reflex, took up two Magnum's and joined the fray. Great. Now there was a spilt. The elf swung his bow back over his back and resorted to two elvish daggers, making the matter even MORE complicated, resulting in Alex and Lara in the middle, surrounded by various pointy weapons, many of which Alex had no idea what they were in the first place. Check that, Alex never did know what things were the first place. His eyes swung over to the Ring. He may be stupid, but he had seen the movie. Enter Gollum Number 2. Lara, with her I-know-what-you-are-thinking-you-stupid-fool-so-take-your-flithy-robbing-good-for-nothing-thoughts-elsewhere instinct, glared meaningfully at Alex. 

'You are NOT touching, I repeat NOT, touching the halfling, Mr. West.' 

'Halfling, what halfling? Oh, you mean that short stunted person with the ring?' 

Bad move. Half the weapons focused on Lara made their way over to Alex. Frodo looked like a demented frog ready to assault the man, and Sam looked like a demented bull for allowing the man to insult Frodo. Gandalf looked alarmed at the fact they knew about the ring and Aragorn was wearing his oh-so-sinister-and-dangerous-and-mysterious-and-suspicious-and-ranger-like-and-I-don't-trust-you-as-you-might-be-associated-with the-enemy look. 

'What?!' 

'You obviously were not in the line that gave out common sense when you were born, Alex. I am amazed that you are still alive right now.' 

'I take that as an insult.' 

'Alex, if you recall, everything I say to you _is _an insult. How you are going to survive the trip up the mountain is beyond me.' 

'Mountain? What mountain?' 

'THIS mountain, you fool.' 

Lara cocked her head (at least as much as she was allowed to with the numerous amount of metal around her) to her right, where Caradhras loomed over them. 

'Oh.' 

'Sigh.'   
  
  
  



	4. Come on Barbie let's go party Er, I didn...

**Little annoying voice at back of head: Want anything?** _Shut up. _**A jacket at least you idiot. Do you plan to freeze or something? **_Go away. Oh alRIGHT._ **You sure?** _Whatever._

A jacket appears. Make that two. I wonder why.

"Let's just get a move on," said Aragorn.

"I'm coming," blurted out Lara and Alex. 

"I think we should leave the Barbie Doll behind," says Boromir.

Alex snickers.

"Is that your boyfriend?!!" said Pippin innocently.

"Ken right?" Gandalf murmured. "Ahhhhh…. It all makes sense now."

If looks could kill…

On the other hand, Alex bursts into sudden maniacal laughter.

"Oh, stop wasting time," whined Sam. "Let them walk behind us. Besides, their metal clubs don't look very dangerous."

_Wanna bet, Mister?_

Due to a severe lack of time, this is the end of this chapter. Sorry out there.

We PROMISE to get the next bit up soon, but due to, er, maybe technical problems I have to put this little scrap up first.


	5. NOT THE BACKPACK!

::I HATE ALEX WEST.:: By Clarenova 

A/n: The last one was by J.J. You might have guessed :) Action galore! 

* 

_Thats it, that hobbit has been asking for it...___

Just then, there was a growling and grunting noise behind the company. 

_Oh shit. This is it... Orcs. Lets hope Alex West has enough brains left...___

Whirling around in surprising calmness, she saw the gruesom sight of orcs before her. The elf boy had already shot two down, and crazy hobbit boys were out chucked swords at one another. 

_Oh boy. Don't look dangerous? They wish. Funfunfun.___

Before she even finished thinking that thought, two rounds of bullets were off, the noise, which was extremely loud compared to what was going on, startled everyone expect Alex West, and the battle stopped. 

For about 0.579026906237609027203760 seconds. 

As she rammed another cartridge in, jumping dead orcs and round kicking another in the head, she couldn't resist yelling to Sam, 

'Useless piece of metal? You wish!' 

Another orc approached her, then another from behind, cornering her against an oak. 

_Oh damn.___

Dropping down onto the ground, Lara siderolled, flinging both pistols backwards abover her shoulder, one knocking an orc square beneath the eyes and the other near shaving the hair off Gandalfs beard as she dived after her Uzis that lay on the floor. Jumping up, she released a barrage of bullets, taking down at least 10 more in the process... 

Then... 

Orcs were ramaging in a backpack. 

HER backpack. 

HER BEST backpack. 

HER ONLY, BEST AND BEST LOVED backpack. 

They were going _dowwwwwwwwwnnn._   



	6. The Broomstick vs The Barbie Doll

Lara briefly recalled the advertisement where a flock of birds had completely pecked off two people, clothes and all, but had left the packs. She sure hoped that her pack was made like that.

No such luck. The orcs, of course, were completely mutilated in less than a millisecond but the pack ended up with several bullet holes.

She was rather upset to see Alex West still alive.

Mental notes to self: kill Alex West myself, don't read anything Winston gives me, buy a new pack and get outta here.

The orcs were gone, or rather scattered all around. Lara found two partially digested Uzi clips in the wreckage. _Thank god they didn't try to eat the pack or the rest of them. Stupid orcs. They should've eaten Al- no, wait, he was probably too bitter._

She swung her pistols (these weaklings didn't deserve her Uzi's) in an arc and suddenly most everyone was left swinging swords in the air above corpses. Lara stuck her pistols back in the holsters strapped around her legs (luckily I read with them!) and scooped up her bullet-ridden pack.

"You know, before more of those ostrich things some I think we'd better get a move on."

"Ozrich?" said Frodo.

"You know, ugly flying birds…" muttered Lara. "Never mind." To her annoyance Alex had already started up the mountain without her. _Heck to the rest of them for now,_ she decided. Pulling her newly acquired jacket tighter, she sprinted after him.

The new-but-still-odd-and-moody Fellowship had barely been walking up for twenty minutes when a very interesting thing happened. 

Gandalf, true to his word, had attempted to chuck the Barbie Doll of Caradhas. 

"You get back here, you dirty great broomstick!" yelled Lara as she chased after him with her Uzi's blazing. "And you ever think of cutting that?"

It took the joint effort of the Ken doll and the still-moody Fellowship to subdue them both. Lara stuck out her tongue at their retreating backs and to her surprise Gandalf followed suit.

"Copycat," she muttered. Lara Croft must never be taken by surprise.

After that, they killed another twenty minutes before suddenly someone spoke up.

"Maybe we should go back down."


	7. Wargs Just the way I like 'em

::Dammit. I hate Elves that walk on snow. Dammit again:: 

A/N: Last one was by Jennifer Jolie, this one is by me!! Read and Review guys! ~'Nova 

* 

_So that blasted broomstick does has a common sense. Of course we shouldn't go down. Why not? Let's just freeze ourselves to death and encase the Ring in snow until Sauron comes and burns the bloody mountain down. Hear the sarcasm...___

Frustrated, Lara elbowed her way through the waist deep snow. The Elf was pacing above her, near her head. Damn, she hated him. Why couldn't he just come down and walk like the rest of them? Stupid elf... So what if her could walk on snow... Fuming, she pushed away even harder. Then an idea struck her head. 

_Annoying voice? OI! Annoying voice!___

**_Annoying Voice at Back of Head: WHAT?_****__**

_I know what I want...___

**_Annoying Voice at Back of Head: What?_****__**

_I wish for... Unlimited wishes. *smirk*___

**_Annoying Voice at Back of Head: But! But..!_****__**

_I make the wish, you grant it, dammit!___

**_Annoying Voice at Back of Head: Fine, Ms. Croft, fine... Just keep your head on!_****__**

_Hurry the heck up please.___

**_Annoying Voice at Back of Head: Done, ok? Be gone!_****__**

_That'll hurry things up... Lets see... I want some skis. Some good skis.___

**_POP!_****__**

_Bingo._

Ice blue skis popped up, and Lara put them on. 

_Oh yeah...___

Crawling above onto the packed snow, Lara pushed off, laughing her plaited head off at the stunned elf. 

"Hey Legs! Why ya so slow? Get a move on back there!" 

The Elf positively turned purple, making Lara almost fall off the slope in amusement. Then, Mr. West's annoying voice came up. 

'Hey Lara! One over here?' 

_Damn him. Fine. One pair of skis. That land on Mr. West's head.___

**_POP!_****__**

**_WHACK!_****__**

'Dammit Lara! You did that on purpose!' 

'So what if I did, Mr. West? Don't complain, you never know what might come out of it. The little voice in the back of my head seems to like me...' 

'Shit.' 

Alex had just slipped, and near fallen off the slope. Lara nearly choked in laughter. Then, she swerved suddenly, stopping mid ski, nearly ramming into the running Legolas and very nearly beheading Aragorn. Uzis were now, once again, in her hand. Sam said, timidly, as he somehow managed to get Lara's name through all the madness, to Lara, 

'Erm, Miss Croft?' 

'What?' 

'I'm.. I'm sorry about what I said about those... things...' 

Lara actually smile. 

'No problem, Sam. Their called guns. You guys must be find this pretty strange, huh?' 

Nodding and murmuring. 

'So, all I can say is that I was reading, some book about you guys, which means I'm in the future, I think, then I was here... Must be some kind of magic or something like that. So basically, One, I know all about you people, Two, I am on your side, Three, I will not steal any Ring of any sort, and Four, I AM NOT A BLOODY BARBIE DOLL, YOU GET THAT GANDY?' 

Gandalf looked shocked, but now that the matter had been cleared up, the hobbits were snickering at the now flustered Maia, and even Legolas let out a faint smile. 

'But, anyway, back to what I stopped for.' 

Attention came back to her. 

'Ready for some wargs?' 

Frodo whispered out in fear. 

'What?' 

'Wargs, mister Baggins, some bloody annoying wargs.' 

'Then why are you smiling..?' 

'What's life without fun?' 

Lara, still smiling, turned, withdrew her uzis, and grinned like Aragorn gone mad. 

'Bring it on!' 

A/N: Yeah, yeah, Tomb Raider fans, I know that Lara is OOC, but don't blame meee! 


	8. Right Pick on the elf, and so The Elf ha...

::Elves hate braids. Well, at least now they do. Thanks to Lara.:: By Clarenova. Again. 

Disclaimer: Lara Croft belongs to whoever the producers of Lara Croft are, and J.R.R Tolkien settled with the Lord of The Rings people. 

A/N: I'm baaaaaccccccccccccccck! Have you lot missed me? No? Thought not. Jolie and me decided to FINALLY update, after a week or two of great procrastination. Written by me, Clarenova, once again, and we dare say you will enjoy the blow by blow double dagger fight by Lara in this one. Enjoy your flight, we are Jennifer Jolie and Clarenova, signing off. Not permanently. BTW, if you happen to read J.J's profile, kindly skip the note about me looking like Lara Croft from the back (SO WHAT IF I HAVE LONG BLACK HAIR IN A BRAID, HUH? WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? SO WHAT IF I LIKE JUMPING AROUND AS WELL? HUH? HUH? _HUH?_), thank you. Have a nice life. No, I am not in an insane asylum. Any questions? Oh yeah, please do not copy the dagger account of Lara's that part took me quite long, and I hereby copyright it (C) Clarenova. The dagger fight is MINE people. MINEMINEMINE. So there. :P 

*   


Orcs had also come along with the delightful package, and realizing that there were too many for the guns, Lara threw her two to Legolas, the nearest to her, who stood dumbstruck, catching the metal machinery only out of instinct and Elvish reflexes. 

'Heads up, Elf boy!' 

Staring at Lara as if she were mad, Legolas stood there, shocked into stillness, having dropped his prized bow in the rush to catch the two pieces of flying metal aimed at his head. Before he knew what had happened, Lara had zipped by, grabbed his two daggers off his back and unsheathed them smoothly. Smiling devishly at him, she mock bowed to him, calling out in an annoying voice. 

'Thank you, mighty prince of Mirkwood! Damage the guns and die! Go steal some blade from Aragorn if you really need to! See ya!' 

Before Legolas could even react or turn red, Lara had plunged head on into the throng of orcs and wargs in front of them. Aragorn angrily called over to the elf prince as he swung Anduril and beheaded another orc, adding to his rising pile around him. 

'Legolas! Do not dally! Standing there will not help our predicament! Your arrows are needed!' 

Looking from Aragorn to Lara, who was massacring orcs by the dozen, Legolas could only drop the uzis and retrieve his bow, contributing to the rising death toll of the fell beasts, muttering about humans who lacked common sense. 

* 

Taking a deep breath, Lara put a smile on her face and plunged into heated battle. Something screeched to her left, and her left arm swung with skilled grace as she moved her entire body to pick up the momentum. The dagger embedded itself into the back of an orc's back with a dull thump, bringing the disgusting creature down to the ground and pulling Lara into a kneeling position. A soft, agonizing groan and the orc dead was Lara's reward, and she silently withdrew the dagger, still kneeling down. Hearing something creeping up behind of her, she immediately made a vicious diagonal upward swipe with her right dagger, sending it piercing through the lower jaw of the orc standing above her, and pulling herself around at the same time, stabbed her left into the forehead of another who was also turning onto her. Instantly, orcs and wargs began to swarm around her, pinning her from all sides. Yanking loose her right, Lara swerved away from the crude blade of an orc, but turned the manoeuvre into a whirl as she wrapped herself around her left arm. Pushing herself towards her right, Lara used the weight of the dead orc's body as a support, and kicked started herself towards another attacker in a 180 degree turn, resulting in her right hand dagger flying out and hitting yet another person smack dab in the throat just as the left embedded itself into the stomach of the warg that had foolishly challenged her. 

Legolas, gritting his teeth in anger, was determined not to loose out to the human, and doubled his shooting speed, if that was even humanly possible. But hey, he was an elf. He did what an elf would do. Instantly, five orcs that had been alive five seconds ago were lying on the ground, each with a brown shafted arrow sticking out of their foreheads. Groping, he cursed as he found that he had no more arrows, as all of his own had been spent. Smoothly making his way over to the fighting Aragorn, he neatly pushed an orc, impaling the creature onto Anduril, leaving him safe to shoplift a quiver off the ever equipped one's back as well as tug two short swords off the man's belt as Aragorn busily tried to tug Anduril loose. Swinging the quiver over his back, he covered for the seething Aragorn by gifting every orc that came even close with a complimentary arrow to the neck. Lara came stabbing over, still with a smile on her face. Legolas had the sudden urge to strangle her. 

'Having fun yet, elf boy? Looks like kingy there is having some orc trouble.' 

Aragorn resisted the urge to curse at Lara while tugging vainly at Anduril, trying to pull the sword out. Still grinning, she dispatched another few orcs, nimbly jumping away from all weapons that came her way, and shouting insults and banter their way. Legolas fought even harder to keep up with her. Looking his way again, Lara hollered over the loud mess, while almost carelessly kicking at an orc, her braid slapping him in the face as she came closer to converse with him. 

'Hey Legs? Trying to keep up?' 

Legolas refrained from comment, spluttering as he pushed Lara's pleat out of his eyes. He made a mental note to try and cut it off at the next possible opportunity. 

'You can surely do better than that, elfy.' 

That made Legolas really mad. Finishing another quiver with the last twang of his bow, he took up the "borrowed" short swords and viciously vented his boiling anger on the orcs, who had learnt to flee as soon as they saw him. Lara laughed mockingly at him. 

'You aren't fighting hard enough, oh blond prince!' 

Still keeping silent, he stabbed another in the back and kicked a warg in the stomach before delivering the downward swipe that finished it off. Lara shouted at him again. 

'Your hair is getting _really_ messy, Legs!' 

Irritated at the nickname and finally breaking, he mingled his reply with the scream of an orc that he was working on dispatching. 

'Insolent human! Do _not_ insult me!' 

Finally, the last of the orcs and wargs had been killed off, and Lara walked over to the elf in the dimming sunlight. Once again, she shouted. 

'Heads up, elf boy!' 

Legolas nearly panicked as he saw two glimmering Elvish daggers flying towards his head.   



	9. A door, a Strider, a sniper, and a fryin...

Jennifer Jolie: Sorry this took so long; Clarenova, as you may know, is in Australia right now and I only just caught her on MSN today. After that, I took an abominably long time correcting her (hint hint) horrible spelling, grammar, punctuation, tenses, and that sort of thing, as well as deleting all the so-and-so-says taglines. Enjoy our new chapter, please. Our efforts (especially MINE) thus will not be wasted. Anyway, Clarenova has watched the movie four times and I've watched it twice, so… expect it to be okay-accurate. : )  
  
  
  
  
  
As the company approached the mountain of Cahandras, Gandalf the Grey, one of the two blue Istari, leads their company over the peak of Cruel Redhorn and promptly fails, before desperation brings then to Moria, Khazah Dum, the old Dwarf ruins of the Khazah Dum. As they meet the doors of Moria, where starlight and moonlight illuminate, they see the door.  
  
  
  
Why the hell is this so damn serious? And this place could use a serious makeover, thought Lara disgustedly.  
  
  
  
"What on earth is that... THING?" Lara questioned, pointing to the door  
  
  
  
"A door," snickered Alex.  
  
  
  
"No, is it, Sherlock?" She turned to Gandalf. "What's the elfish word for friend?"  
  
A little insight on our characters…  
  
"Of ALL the people she could have asked how to say an ELVISH word she asks the WIZARD! WHO'S the elf here? Huh? Huh? I AM!" growled Legolas.  
  
  
  
"Calm down, Thranduillion, she is simply... uh... Inquiring to the nearest source of... uh... available elvish! That must be it," stammered Aragorn hastily. The metal things scared the shit out of him, obviously.  
  
  
  
"She walked over to Gandalf. I was sitting right NEXT to her," insisted Legolas.  
  
  
  
Gimli: Drool. Drool, drool, drooool.  
  
  
  
Thank you. And now, back to our story.  
  
  
  
"What? Friend? Mellon?" blinked Gandalf in mild surprise.  
  
  
  
The majestic doors of Durin crack slowly open, and they look into the black darkness, lit only faintly by the doors, which glowed like some annoying ad board.  
  
  
  
"Look at all the pretty colours," muttered Lara. "What is this, Popeye? Technicolour?"  
  
  
  
"What colours?" asked Alex absently. Then again, he was always that way.  
  
  
  
Lara absently threw a punch backwards, hitting Alex squarely between the eyes.  
  
  
  
Suddenly, a dark monstrosity crept out from the pitch-black darkness, and slowly crept towards the company.  
  
  
  
"STRIDER!" screamed Frodo, and started running around the room in circles like E.T.  
  
  
  
A few arrows zipped past and the elf sprang up, whilst Gandalf withdrew Glamrig and the rest withdrew various weapons (swords, daggers, axes, bows, arrows, guns, Uzis, rocket launchers, AK 99s, magnums, 9mms, pistols, Desert Eagles and various other weapons of destruction).  
  
Fine. Maybe kill the rocket launcher. ("That's not bloody fair!" yelled Lara.)  
  
  
  
Sam withdrew a frying pan (non-teflon, wooden handle). It made the whole battle sound almost musical, though it's no Mozart, Lara observed clinically.  
  
  
  
Frodo had gone into pale, useless, whimpering mode, after his exciting little 100-cm dash, while Aragorn was busy chopping hither and tither, nearly beheading Boromir in the process. He did, however, behead several… other creatures, so maybe the effort and death-threat weren't entirely wasted.  
  
  
  
Lara stood back for a moment, taking the scene in, before laughing out loud in a short chuckle. Before withdrawing a sniper rifle out of nowhere, ramming in the cartridge deliberately slowly, and bringing it up to her eye-  
  
  
  
"Damn hair!"  
  
  
  
After a momentary scrabbling to remove the pesky strands of hair from her eye of the sniper, she took aim.  
  
  
  
WHABAM.  
  
  
  
Cha-chink.  
  
  
  
One eye down, seven or so more to go. She took aim again.  
  
  
  
WHABAM.  
  
  
  
Cha-chink.  
  
  
  
Two down, six or so more to do.  
  
  
  
WHAPING.  
  
  
  
Uh oh. Lara ducked as the ricocheting of the bullet zipped around the cave before the bullet embedded itself in another eye. Luck or skill? You decide.  
  
  
  
Cha-Chink. 


	10. Legolas and two braids!

A few minutes later and a couple of cartridges, Lara watched again as the company ran for their worthless hides, and flung the sniper at the octopus like watcher of the water, which embedded like a javelin. 

"Metals have iron. It's good for your health. Till then, ta! Gotta break for tea.' She ran.

A bit of a sprint later, she caught up with the company, still running for their useless hides.

                                                                       ~*~

"Be quiet. It is a four day journey to the other side. We can only hope that our presence goes unnoticed," declared Gandalf importantly, puffing himself up to a Pavorotti-like state.

"Riiiiiiiiiight. If our presence goes unnoticed, I'm a strand of hair," muttered Lara.  On cue, her annoying hair plopped back down out of place.

"Damn."

Legolas looked at her and sniggered, eyeing his own, unobtrusive halo of hair that graced his head.

"Heh."

Out of nowhere, a number of golden blonde strands whapped in front of his eyes like windshield wipers.

"I hate you, Lara."

Lara batted her eyes annoyingly at the elf. "Why so?"

The elf jabbed at his hair, floating around his head like planets orbiting the sun.

"You have cursed it, you vile human stealer of graves, or whatever beast of the shadow you are."

Lara almost giggled, then caught herself. _Crazy elf. Grave robber I can handle. Stealer of graves? I don't take the whole grave, you know._  "Hair? Hair is a part of life. Braid it. Oh, you know when I was about sixteen, I did two braids, you know. Don't you think that would look _gorgeous_ on you?"

The elf paled at the thought.

                                            ~*~

A quick author's note: Clarenova has abandoned me from MSN at this point. I cannot remember what happened and if I get it wrong I know I shall be stoned, most of all by lovely lady Clarenova herself. So there we go. Don't worry, she'll be back before the end of the millennium. I think.


	11. Crushes on Arnold, snorks, a surprise fr...

Back after all this long time, Australian-ness, schoolwork, nasty exams, more nasty exams, Fanfiction.net sever breakdowns, did I mention nasty exams, Chinese teachers, nasty exams…. Oh well. Jennifer Jolie attempts to gain her share of the credit (or work) by writing this alone… oh joy. Anyway, I really hope I got the facts right, etc, etc, also hoping to avoid a stoning from Lovely Lady Clarenova (that's really starting to stick now). So put your feet up on the desk, toss whatever you're doing out the window (apart from the computer, your lungs, heart etc) and try to enjoy this. 

Disclaimer: I'll leave the boring sort of 'this this this belongs to this this this' to Lovely Lady Clarenova and just say that this is a HUMOUR, HUMOUR, HUMOROUS fic, and that any insults to the characters whatsoever are meant with no offense. Apologies to the Tolkienites for screwing up LOTR stuff, and LLC apologizes for screwing up Lara's character, which I shall do my best to mend this chapter. :  )

Also, _Mummy_ fans please don't come after me for the above reasons, I myself am a TR and Mummy fan.

Final word: changed a bit of the movie, *here and there*. Please don't sue, I only have $10 or so a week!

"Kraiky, look aht thaht!" exclaimed Alex in a useless British accent. Lara ignored him. [Crikey, look at that!]

"There's something down there," he amended, in his normal (goofy) American accent.

This time, Lara swung around, both pistols trained around his jugular vein.

"You know, if you do that fast enough, you can almost write your name with it," he squeaked. Safety clicked off, noisily rebounding off the shadowy walls of the seemingly endless hallway. 

Alex raised his hands in surrender before she lowered them and resumed walking. _Not one for The Mummy is she? Maybe it was Brandon Fraser. Oh, I know. She's crushing on Arnold._ Alex sniggered, carefully stamping slightly to cover the noise.

It didn't quite have the result he expected. Quite the… _exaggeration_, as a matter of fact.

Thunderous hail came crashing down from all sides, not quite landing on them but on the ground, as if they had rolled down from a stack rather than the ceiling. The whip-like cracks of splintering wood echoed around the mines like a million storms, seemingly applauding the superior destruction caused by One Sniggering Idiot.

As the rubble settled The Fellowship Of The Ring frantically began lighting torches, but these flickered and died from the swirling dust. In preparation of more Gandalf-inspired doom, all drew their weapons except for Boromir, who had been hit…. somewhere with Sam's frying pan, Gandalf, who was chanting a useless fire-bringing spell or whatever, and Frodo, who had resumed his famous look-serious-and-then-start-running-around-in-circles pose.

With obvious and impatient sighs, two luminous green flares were lit, revealing Alex's usual cocky grin, directed in Lara's direction.

Or so he thought.

One green flare flickered out as Alex fell to the floor on top of it, hit… somewhere by a frying pan.

A quick distribution of flares, or lamps, as the nostalgic fellowship just _had_ to call them, revealed the crushed, scattered material – not wooden structures collapsing but dry, cobwebbed bones and skeletons collapsing from their tidy piles. Most still were clad in rusting armor, and some had tattered, faded fabric pieces on them.

"God, don't these people dust?" muttered Lara under her breath.

In the meantime, the Fellowship and Co. continued walking through the mines. Every few milliseconds or so, Gandalf could be heard muttering death threats, while Lara could be heard cocking her pistols again. Boromir could be heard wincing, Gimli could be heard whining, and Alex could be heard attempting to flick his guns in circles (and dropping them, swearing, and picking them up) like the (cocky) American The Mummy, which in the past hour or so had become his favorite movie. Sam could be heard whistling while wiping some grime off his pan. Merry and Pippin seemed to be eating third lunch. Only Aragorn and Legolas appeared to be silent. Ran in royalty or elf-raised it seemed.

~*~            

"MY DEAR COUSIN!" boomed Gimli. "OHHHH, MY COUSIN!!!!!!!" He charged like a rhino towards a very crude coffin bathed in an ethereal bluish tinged light, finally thumping his head against it and sobbing, though the sound of it with was more like someone trying to breathe through a nose clogged with semi-mashed potato. "My, my, snorkle, dear cousin, snorkle snorkle…."  
  


Lara, in a rare show of kindness to people losing beloved family members, went so far as to find a very ladylike white handkerchief somewhere in her bottomless pack and offer it to Gimli, who blew his turnip nose in it before thrusting it back.

Lara's rare show of kindness faded rather quickly.

"Cor, wot a godahwfool smell!" trilled Alex hopefully. [Cor, what a godawful smell.]

To everyone's surprise it was Legolas he drove the hilt of his dagger into Alex's temple. He shrugged. "Annoying fool."

Lara raised an eyebrow.

Gimli suddenly noticed that the attention was no longer on him.

"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, MY DEEAAAR COUSIN!!!!!!! Snark snark."

                                                            ~*~

"FRODO!" bellowed Gandalf.

"I didn't touch it!" wailed Frodo. 

"Then why did a whole bloody skeleton topple down the freakin' well?" yelled- LEGOLAS?!!

"Why the bloody hell are you trying to talk like me?" yelled Lara back.

A bow and pistol were soon aimed at one another, arrow to barrel. The bearer of the bow was very red.

Then who should arrive but Gandalf, conking both of them over the head with his stick, which had finally been good for _something_, and shouting, "Walk!" Both walked as straight as possible with staggering behind him, as he very audibly pronounced, "Fools of a took."

Sam gaily swung his pan back and forth, singing.

Suddenly Lara halted, causing Legolas to slam right into her. He turned noticeably a shade darker. "What's that sound?" 

Sam stopped mid-swing, mid-note. "Mista Frodo!" he said hoarsely.

Frodo withdrew his sword. It glowed a leering blue. 

And of course, everyone knew what he said next.

"Orcs!" he rasped, sotto voce. 

The fellowship and stowaways took off, all but Gandalf, who stood alone in the middle of nowhere and proclaimed, "We must run!"

~*~

A slight intro on some of our characters as they run:

Frodo: Orcs! Orcs!

Merry: Orcs! Orcs!

Sam: Orcs! Orcs!  
  


Pippin: Orcs! Orcs!

Legolas: Blush blush. Orcs!

Alex: What the hell is an orc?

Gandalf: We are doomed.

Gimli: Snark snark, drool, drool.

Now, back to our story.

                                                                        ~*~


	12. Gandalf Goes Goodbye!

::Runnnnnnnnn!:: 

Disclaimer: BLAH not mine BLAH not JJ's..... BLAHHHHHHHH! 

A/N: As most would have guessed from the start design, Clarenova has returrrrrned! JJ doesn't know I'm writing this, but hell... 

* 

Fellowship: Run run run run run. 

Run out of the chamber. Run run run. Run on stone platfrom. Run run run. 

Boromir: 

'Run!' 

Boromir runs insanely to the front, sprinting like a coward away from the drums. Legolas ran after him, grabbing him by his oversized dinner-plate shield as Boromir nearly flys off into nothingness. 

'Run run run, but not off the stair, you fool!' 

Fellowship: Run run run! 

Sprinting down stairs... Big crack. Big fall. Big break. Big pain. Legolas, oh-valiant-elf-who-walks-on-snow-and-ropes-the-graceful-one jumps across. 

'Jump! Jump!' 

Lara jumps. Legolas refuses to catch her, nearly sending the human off the edge until he pulled her by her desert eagle up. 

'NO! NOT THE DESERT EAGLE ZERO POINT FIVE!' 

The elf did not take notice as Lara screamed at him from her perilous hanging position. She grabbed a handful of arrows out of his quiver. 

'NO! NOT THE ARROWS FROM RIVENDELL!' 

Pause. The two glared at each other. Legolas pulled Lara up, and snatched away his arrows. Lara hoisted herself upright, and snatched away her desert eagle. At the same time, they said, 

'Stupid elf!' 

'Stupid mortal!' 

'STOP YELLING AT EACH OTHER AND GET US ACROSS, YOU CONFOUNDED ARROW-GUN OBSESSED IDIOTS!' 

Once again, silmutaniously, 

'WHY DON'T YOU JUMP YOURSELF, ALEX?!' 

And again, 

'STOP TAKING MY LINES!' 

**_Stomp. Crank. Crreeeacckk._****__**

Fellowship: BALROG! BALROG! RUN! RUN! 

Alex: FLAMING THINGY! FLAMING THINGLY! FLEE! FLEE! 

In immediate fast forward, they went. Gandalf jumped across, bits of food flying off his beard as he went, and landed on Lara's toe. In return, Lara grabbed his staff and rapped him on the head. Aragorn threw Pippin and Merry across, who scattered mushrooms about in a amazing cresendo on how so little matter can fit so much mass into their pockets. Boromir held his dinner-plate, let out a whoop, then dinner-plate-boarded across, lauching himself into the air, holding the shield with both hands, then locking his feet in the handles, turned his body into a V, grabbed the end of the shield before flipping in mid air then boarding down a strip of stair on the other side. 

_Insane bugger.___

Sam was thrown across, pots and pans clanging worse than the One Sniggering Idiot's personal manicure set, while Gimli complained when his bread got grabbed after his nobody-tosses-this-fat-dwarf line. Lara made note to step on the wavy grizzle before the elf hualed him up. Now, it was The Many Named Heir Of A Bloody Big Kingdom left alone with Blue Eyed Angel Face That Carries The Doom Of The World Cliche Boy on the stair, which conviniently snapped at that _specific_ moment. Frodo's bottom lip started qivering, and his blue orbs of Infinite Pitifullness rounded. Arrows started zipping from the upper chambers, threatening to strike them. Lara and Legolas snapped to work. 

'You *beeping* little bits of *beep*! QU SI!' 

Lara, for some unknown reason, began to rattle off different languages at the orcs while shooting her desert eagles like no tomorrow. The last two words meant go and die in Chinese, if one must know. The elf scowled at her before turning to shoot orcs wordlessly. One... *Plop*. Two.... *SPLAT*. Three *WHACK*. After a while, the hobbit and the ranger on the madly tilting staircase finally managed to get a grip of themselves to lean forward as the stair dropped forward. All together now... 

'RUN!' 

Scramble scramble. Run run. Run run run. 

And they ran... The bridge came into view... And they dashed... They started on the bridge... And they stopped. 

*Boom-doom-boom-doom* 

A balrog had come. As the ten others waited on the other, safer, saner-to-be side of the bridge, Gandy, the "wize" wizard, challanged the much, _much_ bigger Balrog. 

'YOU CANNOT PASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, FLAME OF UDUN! I AM THE SERVANT OF THE SECRET FIRE, WIELDER OF THE FLAME OF ARNOR, COPIER OF THE TECHNIQUE OF BALROG-DEFEAT-THROUGH-FALL-OF-GREAT-CHASM-THEN-OF-REINCARNATION OF GLORFINDEL'S! YOU MAY NOT PASS! GO BACK TO THE SHADOW OF WHENCE YOU CAME, AND DON'T COME CRYING TO ME OR GLOFINDEL IF YOU DON'T END UP LIKE YOUR DEAR COUSIN WHO FELL IN GONDOLIN. THE ENTRANCE TO BALROG HEAVEN WAS CLOSED WHEN YOU COUSIN DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE "FUN" TO PLAY WITH A MAIA BY PLAYING 'TAG'. BACK TO THE PRESENT... YOU CANNNNOOOTTT PASSSS!' 

The balrog looked at Gandalf, then broke out in tears, trampling back and forth as if it were attacking. The bridge underneath it started to give way. 

'That isn't FAIR! I wanna go to balrog heaven! I've heard so much about it, like, like, like when you could eat all that you wanted in an eternal buffet up there! Which Maia did they play with in the first place?' 

Gandalf growled as he rammed his staff onto the bridge. 

'ME. Why do you think my beard's all frizzled? It got burnt. Why do you think my hat's crooked? It got bent. Why do you think my staff looks like it shriveled up? It got twisted. Ta-ta.' 

The bridge gave way as the balrog fell, writhing as it complained about wanting to go to the eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet and the balrog-sized swimming pool up wherever balrogs go. Gandalf sighed. Five seconds later, the balrog's whip came up and caught onto his foot. 

'I DON'T CARE! YOU ARE GOING TO OPEN THE GATES UP FOR MEEEEEEEEEEE! NOW!' 

Gandalf clung desperatly to the bridge, unwilling to go down. 

'NO! And let them play with me again? NEVER!' 

The wizard looked over at the gaping ten. Scowling at them as his handhold gave way, he screamed, 

'I-- can't-- FLY, you fooooooooooooollsss!' 

Lara sighed as she left Moria. The rest were weeping, crying, moaning, groaning, seething, breaking, shocked, disbelieving 


	13. Lothlori WHAT? AKA The Adventures of Gal...

::Loth lor- what???!:: 

Disclaimer: BLAH! 

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I'm late I know. JJ already murdered me for you guys, so never mind, yeah? BTW, we were both a bit... Insane when we wrote this, so it might not make much sense... 

* 

'They say that a sorceress lives in these woods. An elf witch, of terrible power.' 

And they walked. Frodo got so obsessed with his brain and Galadriel's voice that he nearly walked into a tree and got rammed in the back of the head by one of Sam's numerous frying pans. Aragorn was in 'Dark-evil-is-near-and-we-might-die' mood, while Legolas trilled off about the "fair river Nimrodel". Lara scoffed at him, loading a new clip, then abruptly stopped as she heard the now familiar sound of a bow being pulled back. Check that. Bows being pulled back. It was Lorien elf person, AKA Haldir. There was a literal beehive of arrows around her head and her gun, while various other people of the fellowship were in similar nasty situations. Lara resisted a smirk when she saw Legolas pointing to someone who was pointing right back at him. Aragorn stepped forward, carefully avoiding jabbing his eye on another arrow as he made his way to an arrogant looking elf who was staring down his nose at him. 

'Haldir o Lorien, henion aniron. Boe ammen i dulu i ven.' [A/N: Clar cannot remember full thing right now, will update later.] 

Haldir looked as if he was about to puke at the insolent human human who was asking for his aid, before Gimli butted in most inappropriately. Haldir looked at Gimli after he said, 

'Aragorn, these woods are perilous! We should go back!' 

So there they were, 10 dummies trudging through Caras Galdahon (SP!!!). On the way, the elf and, uh, the elf, aka Legolas and Haldir, started rambling off in an incessant stream of, by then, nice to listen but annoying Elvish. 

'Govannas vin gwennen le, Haldir o Lorien.' [The fellowship is in your debt, Haldir of Lorien] 

'Mae govannen, Legolas Thranduillion! Ai, Dunadan na ista le.' [Welll met, Legolas, son of Thranduil! Ai, the (pesky) Aragorn is known to us.] 

So on and so forth. Lara resisted the urge to pound them, while Alex looked at the golden leaves of the mallorn and wondered how much they would fetch on the black market back home. Slowly, they crawled the way through the wood, then just as they thought heir walking days were over, the came unto the Spiralling Inclined Plane: Silver Staircase of Massive Proportions. It was so Massive. That It Demanded That I Put Its Description In Caps Lock. How Appropriate For A Big, Spiralling, Annoyingly Long, Staircase. Lara cursed. 

'_Bloody hell!'_

_*_

A few thousand billion steps later, they reached Galadriel and Celeborn, the silver haired twits! There the lady was in all her splendour, walking regally down the steps. Then she tripped. A few sniggers later and long stares, she regained her composure (and balance). Celeborn spoke first, to cover up for his wife's obvious mess up. 

'Nine there were that set out from Rivendell, but here now stand 10, two from places unknown. But tell me, where is Gandalf the Grey, for I much desire to speak to him.' 

Galadriel's eyes slowly widened in slight shock as she went into melodramatic mode. 

'He has fallen... into... shadow.' 

Suddenly smiling, for some unfathomable reason none dared to wonder, she pierced each of them with a glare before going on. 

'The Quest stands on the edge of a knife... and the black coloured thing the lady is carrying. Ahem, stray but a little, it will fail... But hope remains, while company is true. Now rest, for you are weary with toil and much sorrow. Tonight, you shall rest well...' 

Then, the lady cast her eyes upon Frodo, and her voice droned on in Frodo's head. 

'Welcome, Frodo of the Shire. One who has seen the stupid Eye.' 

* 

_Mithrandir, Mithrandir, o pilgrim grey..._

The trees sang in a soft, sad, bittersweet, you-get-the-point symphony in lament for Gandalf. Legolas, holding a silver pitcher of water, stopped in from of Frodo and Sam, listening intently. Softly, he spoke. 

'A Lament to Gandalf.' 

Sam asked, for he did not speak Elvish. 

'What do they say?' 

Legolas looked at him with his grey/blue/green/black/greyish blue/purple/yellow/red/maroon/brown/gold eyes. 

'I have not the heart to tell you. For me, the grief is still too near.' 

'What do you know about grief, Elf boy,' 

muttered Lara. Legolas looked rather stumped. 

* 

'Gwanna! Gwanna, gwanna, gwanna, gwanna, gwanna, gwanna!' [Die! Die, die, die, die, die, die!] 

swore Galadriel loudly. 

'Damn skirt!' 

She tripped again. Utterly peeved, she gathered her skirt around her knees and hopped to the staircase, (She wore NikeShox© under her gown) before letting it drop down again and walking as regally as she could down it. 

*  
  
Alex had just gambled possession of Frodo's orc-alarm sword for a few days and was still gambling for one of Sam's frying pans when a rather screwed Frodo got to the foot of the stairs just in time to see Galadriel fall flat on her face again. Not wanting to loose a head or anything else, he followed her in silence. It was a very important moment for Galadriel. She didn't trip once on the way to the basic. She even got there early- this gave her time to rearrange her skirt over her new Nikes and reapply her eye shadow. Frodo got to the basin just as Galadriel picked up the enormous silver jut. 

'Will you look into the mirror?' 

Circling warily around to avoid the elf, Frodo questioned, innocent blue eyes going annoyingly huge again. 

'What will I see?' 

Galadriel was feeling thirsty. She lifted the jug and took a hefty slug. Wiping her mouth carelessly with the free back of her hand, she swallowed. Then she realized... 

'_Oh shit. It's been spiked.'___

Mirrors have mercury in them, don't they? 

Frodo boggled in understandable shock while Galadriel continued, 

'Not even the wisest can tell-' 

She paused and took another great swig, this time holding the pitcher over the basin and pouring- 

'For it shows many things. Things that are-' 

Pour- 

'Things that were-' 

Pour- 

'And things that have -hic- not -hic- yet come -hic- to pass. Hic.' 

She took another hefty slug as Frodo bent over the mirror. Her mind wasn't too alcohol tolerant and Frodo was starting to swirl and dilate quite a bit. All in all, he looked plenty better that way. 

* 

'Look Lara! I got six frying pans! 

Shouted Alex, with a goofy grin plastered on his face. 

'Good for you,' 

smiled Lara faintly. Then it faded. 

'Where's your shoe?' 

Alex smiled wryly. 

'You can't always win.' 

'Aren't you going to get it back?' 

Alex dug out a particularly deep frying pan. 

'I lied. And I got Frodo's sword too.' 

Neither of them really knew what to say next, it was possibly the first time they'd actually been nice, check that, civil, to each other the whole cursed trip. Alex decided to try something very familiar again. 

'You know, we don't always have to fight.' 

Exasperated, Lara replied, 

'We're not fighting.' 

'Er, we don't have to fight the rest of the time!' 

Spluttered Alex. 

'Water,' 

Lara cut him off suddenly, pricking her ears. 

'And Frodo making funny sounds. And hiccoughing.' 

She cocked a pistol, 

'Sounds fun.' 

* 

Galadriel was pleased. Frodo was taking her dramatic pose very well. She peered into the jug. Funny. There wasn't much in it. 

_Never mind.___

She turned to Frodo in a very menacing manner and said, 

'Hic.' 

Suddenly, Alex and Lara burst into the clearing through a clump of bushes. Lara's Uzi was spitting bullets every which way but Alex's seemed to be stuck. With an apple. Elevenses. 

Galadriel felt too sick to really be concerned. She leaned on the basic, stuck the jug on her head, and sat there. 

'Come on, Ring Idiot,' 

snarled Lara, dragging a heavily dazed Frodo along. Frodo shouted back. 

'If you wished me to, I would give you the Ring!' 

The Ring on its chain with its mind, swung out of his shirt. Something flared up in Galadriel's subconscious mind. There it was. The Ring.Galadriel screamed back. 

'You offer it to me freely! HIC! I will not deny that I long desired this! BUT IN THE PLACE OF A DARK LORD, YOU WILL HAVE A QUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! HIC! ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!!!!!!!!!'__

Right. After Galadriel finally stopped going green, the world moved again.

Then she took a step forward... 

And tripped. 

Galadriel completely gave up. 

'Come on Ring idiot, AND you,' 

snapped Lara, snatching Alex's hand. Behind his back his free hand held Galadriel's jug.   
  
*  
  
The next day, Galadriel had sobered up a bit and got them a boat that didn't leak. She had a major hangover, and didn't say much. Celeborn altered her dress and supported her down the steps. As a matter of fact, he altered it seven times. Somehow, she still tripped when it was knee length. In the end, he gave her a bathing suit and pushed her in. 


	14. Boromir Goes Byebye! aka EAT MY FOOT! ak...

::Boromir Goes Bye-bye!:: 

A/N: By Clar. Again. *WAVES MADLY* I'm here! Does anyone SEE ME?! Hehe. By the way, sorry all Boromir fans... Mweep. 

* 

So, after a lot of rowing, a lot of splashing, and a lot of "I hate water! Save me Mr. Frodo!" from Sam, they *finally* made it to Amon Hen, kicking and screaming they went. Dragging the boats on shore, they dropped onto the shore, breathless. After a while, they settled in. Lara leaned against a rock wall, loading, reloading, unloading, then reloading her gun out of boredom. Alex was sitting with Merry and Pippin, trying to barter back his shirt with Sam's frying pan. Aragorn stood up, looking to the Eastern shore. 

'We cross at nightfall, hide the boats, then continue by foot. We approach Mordor by the north.' 

Gimli immediately stood up and started to tell him off, which in Lara's opinion, was not a good idea, fact being he reached about Aragorn's waist. She watched, amused. 

Oh? Just a simple matter of finding our way across Emyn Muil, an impassable labyrinth of razor sharp rocks! And then it gets even better! Festering, stinking marshlands as far as the eye can see!' 

The hobbits, plus Alex, immediately looked up, pale. On *foot*? Stinking *marsh*? Where were they going to *cook*? Aragorn looked icily at Gimli. 

'That is our road, sir *Dwarf*. I suggest you take some rest and recover your *strength*.' 

Gimli looked as if Aragorn had just told him to put on some mascara. Lara smirked. If it were an RPG, Gimli would have 18 strength, no intelligence, -20 wisdom while Con and Dex would be non existent. (Sorry to those non-gamers out there.) Legolas moved over the Aragorn, wearing that same solemn danger-is-near-I-can-feel-it look on his face. He looked out at the Eastern Shore. 

'We should leave now.' 

Aragorn looked out as well, before facing the elf. 

'No. Orcs patrol the eastern shore. We must wait for the cover of darkness.' 

'It is not the eastern shore that worries me. A shadow and a threat has been growing in my mind. Something draws near, I can feel it.' 

How the _hell_ the elf could _feel_ it was beyond Lara. Abruptly, Sam looked up from his spot on the floor. 

'Where's Frodo?' 

Boromir's shield lay abandoned on the floor. 

_Shit. Ring Idiot's in for it now.___

_*_   
__ __

Frodo, walking in the forest, comes across Boromir, who was carrying a pile of firewood. *WET* firewood. 

'None of us should wander alone, you least of all. So much depends on you. Frodo? I know why you seek solitude. You suffer, I see it day by day. Be sure you do not suffer needlessly. There are other ways, Frodo, other paths we might take.' 

Frodo circled him warily. 

'I know what you would say, and it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart.' 

'Warning? Against what? They are all afraid, but to let that fear drive us to destroy what hope we have... Don't you see? It's madness!' 

'There is _no_ other way.' 

Frodo now backed away steadily. Boromir approached, hands up and palms showing. 

'Why do you recoil? I am no thief!' 

Frodo Thinking: _My foot. My fat hairy ugly foot.___

_'You are not yourself!'___

'I ask only for the strength to defend my people! If you would only *LEND* me the Ring!' 

'NO!' 

'What chance do you think you have? They will find you, they will take the ring, and you will beg for death before the end! It is not yours save by a happenstance. It could have been mine. It should have been mine! Give it to me!' 

'EAT MY FOOT!' 

Boromir pounced on Frodo. 

'I retract that sentence! Gerrof, you lured idiot!' 

Putting on the Ring, Frodo kicked Boromir in the gut and ran like mad. Running, running, he made it to the High Seat of Amon Hen, looks East, sees the eye and promptly falls off. How he did not break his neck is _beyond_ me. Moving on. Aragorn came running but Frodo backed away like a scared chicken. Which he is, just personified. 

'Frodo?' 

'It's Boromir. It has taken Boromir.' 

'Where is the Ring?' 

'Stay away!' 

More chickeness from our dear Ring Bearer, Frodo. 

'Frodo? I swore to protect you?' 

'But can you protect me from yourself? Would you destroy it?' 

Frodo held out the Ring. Aragorn gave him a look that clearly meant "What-do-you-want-me-to-do-stab-myself-with-Anduril-?". He moved closer. And closer. Frodo moved further. And further. 

_How on Middle Earth does he expect me to prove that I won't take the Ring when he keeps on moving away?!___

Finally, Aragorn closed Frodo's hand and he breathed a sigh. 

'I would have gone with you to the end, to the very fires of Mordor.' 

'I know. Look after Sam. I don't think anyone else will be able to stand his talk of tulips.' 

Perking up suddenly, Aragorn withdrew his sword. Frodo took out Sting, which glowed bright blue. 

'RUN!' 

Aragorn starts chopping up orcs. Gunshots can suddenly be heard. Gimli, Legolas and Lara burst in to the scene just as Aragorn jumped off the High Seat and shouted, 

'ELENDIL!' 

Legolas shot an arrow, and shouted, 

'Stupid orc! Stupid, hairless, unplauged by Lara orc!' 

Talk about venting one's anger... 

* 

Merry and Pippin watched Frodo flee, Frodo hid behind a large tree, and looked at them pleadingly. Pippin glanced over at Merry. 

'What's he doing?' 

'He's leaving!' 

Suddenly, a stream of orcs came pounding over. They did not really like the sound of that mad human shooting weird sounds in the air. Merry and Pippin jumped out. Frodo chickened off again. 

'Oi! You! Over here!' 

And they ran. Like hell. The orcs ran after them. 

'Ahhhhhhh! It's working!' 

'I KNOW it's working! RUN!' 

Then, Boromir, Glorious-Unredeemed-Hero jumps in, sword in hand and horn in mouth, blowing madly as he hacked *cough* slashed and practically shredded up orcs. Aragorn and the rest soon heard the horn, hacking, kicking, stabbing, shooting, banging, clashing and everything, they move towards them. Legolas stops to shoot the hell out of three orcs while Lara stops to blow some up with a convenient grenade gifted by her Little Voice. Back at Boromir, a nice Uruk Hai was shooting him to death. 

Shot one. 

Suddenly, Gimli jumped in Super hero style. Lara pulled him away just as the arrow struck. 

'Don't interrupt!' 

Thunk. Rise. Hack. 

Shot Two. 

Thunk. Rise. Hack. 

Shot Three. 

Thunk. Rise. Drop. Fall. 

He shoots, he scores! 

Aragorn got his head stuck to a tree by a shield of the Uruk Hai after some prolonged lanking over before sliding down at the last minute and beheading it. He looked at it in disgust. 

'I _hate_ shields.' 

Jumping over to Boromir, he dropped to his knees. 

'They took the little ones!' 

'Stay still.' 

'Frodo. Where is Frodo?' 

'I let him go.' 

Also putting on a fake smile, Boromir answered. 

'Then you did what I could not. I tried to take it from him.' 

'It.is.beyond.our.reach.now.' 

'_Forgive.me.I.have_.' 

Boromir had to forcefully choke out the last word, the smile forcefully painted on. 

'_failed.you.all_.' 

'No. You-y- fought. _Bravely_. You kept your... _Honour._' 

Aragorn walk practically regurgitating the words. Aragorn then tried to take out the arrow, but the Ever Valiant Boromir stopped him. Aragorn leaned further on the arrow, since Boromir refused to let him take it out. An insult to his healing skills did not go unnoticed. 

'Leave it. It is over. The world of men will fail, and my city into ruin.' 

Commanding himself to look at Boromir, Aragorn coughed out, 

'I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall, nor our... _people._' 

_So I can rule it._

Boromir clenched his teeth, forcing himself to speak in his dying moments, 

'OUR PEOPLE. Our PEOPLE.' 

Boromir reached for his sword. He would not die without it. Following the Book, however, the sword was meant to be broken. Cut the scene to Legolas, Gimli and Lara quickly patching it up with Super Glue, quarrelling over which shard fitted where. Cut back to scene. Aragorn passed the man the sword. Smiling, Boromir coughed out. 

'I would have followed you, my brother,' 

There, Boromir pretended to cough, but secretly said, 

'_MY ASS,'___

_'_my captain,' 

'_My ass,'___

'My... King.' 

'_MY ASS!_' 

He then died. Aragorn leaned as hard as he could on the arrows. 

'Be at _peace_ Son of Gondor.' 

_My FOOT!_   
  
  



	15. We travel Light, well, maybe not for Ara...

::Here We Go!:: 

A/N: Whoooooooooooooooooooooo! Until the 18th of December (REMEMBER THE DATE AND REVERE IT!), I'll be taking a stab in the dark and using the Book! Yes, all you freaky fans, we ascend, or descend, into the TWO TOWERS! Well, not just yet, BUT... 

... 

Right. 

Off we go, then.   


* 

'_Oh yes yes yes, Son of Gondor's dead,_   
_he's lying at the bottom of a waterfall!_   
_He's been stuck full of arrows, he took them all,_   
_chucking sanity out like rolling ball,_   
_stuck like a pin cushion you pick up at the mall,_   
_oh yes yes yes, Son of Gondor's dead!_

_He sword was chopped in many pieces,_   
_horn a cloven into two,_   
_halve and halve put them together,_   
_shard and shard and here we go!_   
_Off another day you see,_   
_Merry, Pippin, Lurtz and me!_   
_Off alone to God-knows-where,_   
_but after all just who would care?_   
_Stuck under the armpit of an orc,_   
_with after shave like a dead stork,_   
_we pound away to somewhere new,_   
_just us special, kidnapped few!_

_Oh goody, goody, I've got my shirt,_   
_and couple of frying pans or two,_   
_don't be stupid just be curt,_   
_cause in the end three of us slew!'_

Alex West, though kidnapped and rid of weapons, was singing merrily, gaining agonized moans from the orcs and rolled eyes from his fellow kidnapped friends, Merry and Pippin. Hoo boy. 

* 

Lara looked around. Left: The elf. Right: The human. Behind: The dwarf. The front: A HELLAVUA lot of dead orcs. Preeettyy sight, but I: No Pippin or Merry, II: No Frodo or Sam and III: NO Alex. PERFECT. Lara sighed. What was she to do? There was nothing to do. Legolas was pulling the boat single handedly down to the shore, totally ignoring the fact that Aragorn did not look the least as if he was going to go after his kidnapped comrades. Gimli was pulling desperately at a grizzly bit of orc that had embedded itself into his beard. His beard, unfortunately due to nature, was embedded to him. Lara shrugged and methodically used the remaining rounds in her (many) guns to pick off straddling orcs and Uruk-Hai. First, she took out a nice, sleek, AK rifle, shot down two remaining orcs, then shoved in a new round and shoved in back into her Bag of A Million Proportions. Secondly, taking a huge 9 MM sawed off shotgun, she bashed out two more Uruks with deadly precision. Shoving in another clip, she lock and loaded four more guns before jamming in full clips into two Desert Eagles 0.7s and tucking them neatly into hip holsters set around, well, her hips. Aragorn was shoving in various blades of many, many sizes, such as a throwing blade down in a hidden wrist guard sheath, a short bow that could somehow be folded down to a nearly minute size on his back, Anduril attached to his waist, five short swords attached together at his hips, a long, lightweight white hafted elven dagger discretely hidden down his left leg, a few shuriken-like discs that were saw edged down the other wrist guard, down his right leg a whole array of strange drug-herbs that blinded, sent to sleep, or dazed opponents, and who could forget, even in this run on sentence, the four hidden throwing daggers down each boot. Oh, did I miss the last few razors that were slipped into a secret compartment in the sole of his boots? Pity that Isildur's heir never used it to shave. Legolas carried only his white hafted knife, and the great Bow of Galadriel gifted to him. Gimli, ever the dwarf, carried his axe. 

Anyway, the Prince of Greenwood finally realized that they were not going to go after Frodo and Sam. Aragorn looked pointedly at him as he adjusted his wrist guard so that the hidden dagger would not kill him by accident. Legolas spoke. 

'Then we are not following them?' 

'The Ring is beyond our reach now.' 

Gimli groaned as he heard that. 

'Then it has all been in vain. The Fellowship is broken.' 

Lara grinned. Maybe then she could get back and sleep. 

'Not if we hold true to ourselves. We will not leave Merry, Pippin, and... erm... Axle? Ale? Ah. Alex, to torment and death. Take only what you need. We travel light.' 

Lara grimaced, but could not help smirking at Aragorn's last line. Travel light? Aragorn travelled with more weapons than rations. Or shampoo or soap, for that matter. 


	16. OUTAKES! I love you, Frodo gags

Outakes: 

Jennifer Jolie arrives, only to find that darling Lovely Lady Clarenova has masticated it. *goes weepy and dramatic* What happened to all the stuff I told you on the phone? And… and.. and at _netball practise_! You… you've… you've _betrayed_ me, Clary… *cries*

Ahem.

So, here's the repair work, as much as I can do. As the latest fad with me is The Matrix, you'll find a lot of that in here… please don't sue! Lara didn't come in all that much, next chapter, sorry.  You may be interested that Constance will (or should) be joining us. *cackles* Bwa hahahahaha…. I added asome extra takes in between, so the numbers may be a wee bit jumbled.  


PJ stands for Peter Jackson. (But we all knew that)

TAKE ONE: 

PJ: Now, Viggo, you jump off the Seat of Amon Hen and shout "Elendil!" Pippin, do the demonstration. 

Pippin: [Promptly jumps off the Seat and shouts...] Elendril! 

PJ: Elen_dil_, Pippin, but never mind, you try, Aragorn. 

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] Elendril!

PJ: No, no, do it again... 

TAKE TWO 

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] Aragorn! [stops] Wait, _I'm_ Aragorn.

PJ: E.L.E.N.D.I.L, Aragorn, ELENDIL! 

TAKE THREE 

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] Isildur! 

PJ: [Dead Tone] Cut. 

TAKE FOUR

Aragorn: [Jumps off seat onto orcs] Gimli!

Gimli: [Spitting out a mouthful of coke and sandwiches] Whaaaat? Me? My scene? [dashes over] And my axe! [swings his dirty great axe]

Axe: THUNK.

PJ: [rubs head] CUT.

TAKE FIVE 

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] Arwen! 

PJ: [panicky] Quick! Somebody chain Arwen to the chair before she gets here! Or we'll never film this scene! 

Arwen: Aragorn! Aragorn! Where art thou, Aragorn? _Viiiggggy!_

TAKE SIX

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] ELROND! 

Hugo Weaving: [Jumps in wearing Matrix black sunglasses and suit] It's.... _Smith._ [Pause] MISTER. Smith. [Longer pause] _AGENT _Smith. 

PJ: Give Hugo the blue pill, yes, the blue pill... 

TAKE SEVEN

Aragorn: [jumps off seat onto orcs] Hugo Weaving! [pauses, cross-eyed] Huh?

Hugo Weaving-Agent Smith: [morphs from the nearest person] It's… _Smith_.

PJ: Oh no, not again…

Jennifer Jolie: [on cameo] [runs in, dragging Clarenova] It's _him_! That's Agent Smith!!!!! [pulls out huge MIB zapping gun] HE KILLED THE ONE!!!!! HE KILLED NEO!!!! ATTACK HIM!!!!

PJ: (._.,) CUUUUUUT…

TAKE EIGHT

Aragorn: [Jumps off seat onto orcs] Lara!

Lara: [_Delicately_ spitting out a mouthful of Coke and sandwiches] Ex_cuse_ me, I happen to be on my _break_ now! [draws pistol and shoots]

Aragorn: Gurgle… gurgle… [dies]

Arwen: [runs in] Aragorn!!! ARAGORN!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

PJ: Dammit. [flips open cell phone] Props, I need a new Aragorn. [to others] CUT.

TAKE WHO-KNOWS-WHAT

Aragorn: [Jumps off Seat onto orcs] ELENDIL! 

PJ: YES! YES! Ye-... _WHERE_ are the orcs? 

Orcs: [Eating sandwiches and drinking Coke] Eh? We went for a break? Oh _why_ is Aragorn flattened on the floor underneath Arwen? Did the lock loosen again? 

PJ: [Looks at Aragorn] Agent Smith, extricate Arwen _off_ Aragorn, please... We need him... 

Aragorn: [dazedly] Lookit all the pretty colours! 

* 

A/N: The actor who plays Bilbo is _Ian Holm. The_ actor who plays Gandalf is _Ian McKellen. _On the set, they are roughly still human sized due to fact that shortness is used for camera tricks. Give me artistic liberty and bear with it. 

PJ: Ian, now, bang your head against the ceiling. 

Ian M: [Whacks the front of his head on the board] 

PJ: No, no, not like that, redo it. 

Ian M: [Whacks the back of his head on the board] 

PJ: No, no, not like that, redo it. 

Ian M: [Whacks the right side of his head against the board] 

PJ: No, no, not like that, redo it. 

Ian M: [Whacks the left side of his head against the board.] 

ENTER IAN HOLM 

PJ: No, no, not like that, redo it. 

Both Ians: [Whack their heads against the board] 

PJ: Not _you_, Ian, IAN, not IAN, Ian, I.A.N! Now, redo it, IAN. 

Both Ians: [Whack their heads against the board.] 

PJ: Ian, what have I told you about not whacking? Let Ian whack! 

Both Ians: [Shrug, and whack their heads against the board.] 

PJ: Stop it, Ian! 

Both Ians: .... [Wrench board out of set and whack PJ on the head] 

PJ: [On the floor, distractedly waving hand] Yes, yes, whack it like _that. _Ian. 

* 

Arwen: If you want him, come and claim him! 

Asfaloth: [Snorts in disdain, and rears up. Frodo falls off, and Nazgul start laughing. Arwen drops to floor.] 

Arwen: Frodo! Frodo! You can't die! Not now! Frodo! [dreamy expression comes over face] I'm not afraid anymore, Frodo… [babbles and babbles]

Frodo: Gurgle… gurgle… [dies]

Lara: [offstage] Ha, ha, HA. Farewell, Ring Idiot… hmmm, maybe I can get off this stupid set now…

Arwen: [dreamy expression] So you see, you _can't_ be dead. Because… I _love you_. I _love you_, Frodo… [Pause] Wait, I retract that sentence. I _don't_ love you. I love _Aragorn_. [Pause] Wait. Do I love Aragorn? Or do I love... [Rambles on]

AND OUT OF NOWHERE…

Trinity: [runs in dragging Neo] That is NOT how you do it.

Neo: [whining] Trin, I was just getting the hang of _flying_, too…

Trinity: Shut up.

Gimli: Droooool, drooooooool, droooooooooooool.

PJ: Joel Silver! (*DUN SUE! PLEASE!!!!) C'mere and take your actors back!

Neo: [flops down and makes choking noises]

Trinity: [tearfully] I'm not afraid, anymore, Neo…

Lara: [undertone] Bollocks.

Arwen: [drags self into a corner and pouts]

Trinity: [goes on and on]

PJ: Come on, this is really getting out of hand…

Trinity: So you see, you can't be dead…

PJ: [grabs one of Neo's limp arms and pulls] JOEL! Get your actors off my set!

Trinity: Because I _love_ you, Neo… I _love_ you… [undertone to Arwen] See, you only put the Italics on the love. Leave the you alone. So it's 'I _love_ you', not 'I _love you_'…

Arwen: (uninterestedly) Ooh.

PJ: JOEL!

Neo: [karate chops Peter Jackson] My name… is _Neo_.

Lara and Alex and basically the rest of the cast: Huh?

PJ: CUUUUUUUT… I want my mommy…

Right, that's all for now, folks! :  ) Byz…

   



	17. The Second Outake Bit

::Outakes II:: 

A/N: Yes, I betrayed you! Bwahahahaaha! Or is it Hahahahahbwah? Things get so confusing... Anyway, outakes are here! 

* 

**The Original:**

"The world is changing. 

I can feel it in the air. 

I can feel it in the water. 

Then she appeared." (reading but not saying it out loud) 

"Miss Lara, may I trouble you for –" 

BANG. 

Winston immediately threw up his tea tray by instinct. A single 9mm shot off the amazingly durable metal (must be British quality) and joined fourteen others in the floor.   


**The Outake:**

"The world is changing. 

I can feel it in the air. 

I can feel it in the water. 

Then she appeared." (reading but not saying it out loud) 

"Miss Lara, may I trouble you for –" 

BANG. 

... 

PJ (Who is out director): Lara...? 

Lara: What? 

PJ: You _do_ know that you weren't actually _supposed_ to shoot Winston... 

Lara: [Looks at the puddle of blood] 

PJ: [sighs and flips out handphone] Props... 

* 

**The Original:**

"I swear, I don't know how I got here," growled Lara as she slowly stepped backwards only to bump into a tree. Damn woods 

**The Outake:**

"I swear, I don't know how I got here," growled Lara as she slowly stepped backwards only to bump into Anduril. 

Lara: [dies] 

PJ: [sighs as he dials for props again] Let's keep mortality rate as high as we can here, people...   


* 

**The Original:**

Lara slowly reached down to her hostlers, grabbed her pistol, kneed Gimli hard and kicked Frodo aside... 

**The Outake:******

Lara slowly reached down to her hostlers, grabbed her pistols, kneed Gimli hard and kicked Frodo aside... All seems well.... Until... 

PJ: [sighing in world weary manner] Lara... On set, don't knee Gimli in-between the legs, please... 

Gimli: Ow. Major ow. 

* 

**The Original:******

'Mountain? What mountain?' 

'THIS mountain, you fool.' 

Lara cocked her head (at least as much as she was allowed to with the numerous amount of metal around her) to her right, where Caradhras loomed over them. 

**The Outake:******

'Mountain? What mountain?' 

'THIS mountain, you fool.' 

Lara cocked her head (at least as much as she was allowed to with the numerous amount of metal around her) to her right, where Caradhras loomed over them. At least, _had_ loomed over them. At that moment, the proppers attached wheels to the mountain and began to drag it away. 

Propper: Mountain ho! 

PJ: PROPPERS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! 

Propper: Didn't you ask for "One Mountain, to take to skunk?" 

PJ: [rubs temples] I asked for _One **FOUNTAIN**_**,** to make DRUNK. At the LOTHLORIEN scene. 

*   



	18. The Third Outtake Bit Gandalf goes Manch...

Hurrah! In six days time, The Two Towers opens in Singapore, and Jenn will get to see her beloved Dalfy come back!!!!!! 

This was done by me, Jenny from the HDB block (Jennifer Jolie, like, DUH), so the format is a little different. As per normal. Jenny from the HDB block (Singapore joke) has run slightly low on interesting characters, so I make a lot of cameos… *flaunts*

_~*~_

**The original:**

Lara's POV 

_Waaaaaaaait__._

_4 short people with freakishly curly hair._

_1 fat dude who has a sick mind that waves around a piece of metal attached to a stick._

_Some guy waving around some big blade that is annoyingly sharp._

_Some fool with a shield that is 4 times bigger than it ought to be._

_Some guy with long *blond* hair who has a couple of dangerously *sharp* arrows pointed at my head._

_A doddering old man pointing a stick at me._

_Shit._

_I'm in Hobbitland._

**The outtake:**

Lara's POV.

Waaaaaaaait.

_4 short people with freakishly curly hair._

_1 fat dude who has a sick mind that waves around a piece of metal attached to a stick._

_Some guy waving around some big blade that is annoyingly sharp._

_Some fool with a shield that is 4 times bigger than it ought to be._

_Some guy with long *blond* hair who has a couple of dangerously *sharp* arrows pointed at my head._

_A doddering old man pointing a stick at me._

_Shit._

_I'm in __Disney__Land__._

**The original:**

 Boromir : What's a barbie doll?

**The outtake:**

Boromir: What's a Barbie doll?

Jennifer Jolie: [on cameo] [off-key] I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world…

Boromir: If _that is a Barbie doll I demand a change in script._

PJ: (._.,)

**The original:**

**Little annoying voice at back of head: Want anything?** _Shut up. _**A jacket at least you idiot. Do you plan to freeze or something? **_Go away. Oh alRIGHT._ **You sure?** _Whatever._

A jacket appears. Make that two. I wonder why.

**The outtake:**

**Little annoying voice at back of head: Want anything?** _Shut up. _**A jacket at least you idiot. Do you plan to freeze or something? **_Go away. Oh alRIGHT._ **You sure?** _Whatever._

A jacket appears on Lara. Alex suddenly appears in a posh looking tuxedo.

Alex: The name's… _West. Alex West._

Lara: [rolling eyes] Bloody hell.

**The original:**

"Oh, stop wasting time," whined Sam. "Let them walk behind us. Besides, their metal clubs don't look very dangerous."

**The outtake:**

"Oh, stop wasting time," whined Sam. "Let them walk behind us. Besides, their metal clubs don't look very dangerous."

[Scene goes into The Matrix-style slow motion. Sorry, Jen likes the Matrix a little too much]

Lara: [pulls out her 'metal club']    

Gimli: [jumps in front of Sam, Superhero style] Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

Lara: [pulls him away]

[Scene s l o w s d o w n g r e a t l y . . .]

PJ: [frantically] Nooooooooo, IIIIIIII wooooooooooooon'tttttttttttt beeeeeeeee abllleeeeeeeeeeeeeee toooooo fiiiiiiiiiiiiiind aaaaaaaaaa  reeeeplaaaaaaaaaaaaaceeeeemeeeeeeeeeeent Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…  [No, I won't be able to find a replacement Gimli]

Lara: [pulls him away]

Bullet: [hits Sam]

[Scene goes nicely back to normal] 

Lara: Don't interrupt!

PJ: [weakly] No, that was meant to happen _later, with __Boromir, and… and… now I n-need a n-new S-S-Sam… [faints]_

Lara: Coward.

**The original:**

Gandalf growled as he rammed his staff onto the bridge. 

'ME. Why do you think my beard's all frizzled? It got burnt. Why do you think my hat's crooked? It got bent. Why do you think my staff looks like it shriveled up? It got twisted. Ta-ta.' 

**The outtake:**

Gandalf growled as he rammed his staff onto the bridge. 

'ME. Why do you think my beard's all frizzled? It got burnt. Why do you think my hat's crooked? It got bent. Why do you think my staff looks like it shriveled up? It got twisted.' He paused, thinking. 'Wait a minute. I can't have that. Props!'

Thirty over guys from Props run over and start putting hairspray and make-up on Gandalf (one brave guy tries to comb his beard). Many more people run to gel his hair. Ten guys from Wardrobe bustle over and get him a new hat and staff.

Gandalf: [admiring his hair in the mirror] That's right. The Fin. (The fin is very, very, _very high, thanks to Gandalf's grizzly mane and there is another Fin where his beard was) Just like David Beckham. [strikes a pose]_

**The original:**

Galadriel was feeling thirsty. She lifted the jug and took a hefty slug. Wiping her mouth carelessly with the free back of her hand, she swallowed. Then she realized... 

'_Oh shit. It's been spiked.'_

**The outtake:**

Galadriel was feeling thirsty. She lifted the jug. Then she realized…

_"Oh shit. It's been emptied."_

Galadriel: PJ! My jug is empty, dammit!

Lara: [wisely] The jug is not half-empty, but half full.

Galadriel: No, no, _no, it's __completely empty._

Lara and Galadriel: [start catfighting] 

Off stage…

PJ: [gorging himself on Spiked Mirror] Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows my sorrow… Who else has to work with actors who can't even keep themselves _alive on set?_


	19. Riders Of Rohan

::The Two Towers:: 

Disclaimer: Diss-the-claimer! 

A/N: No more cutouts, we progress! (to JJ and Constance: I will not do the horse part right now. My sanity has kind of left me and I wish not to kill the fic.) Onwards, ficlings! 

* 

Aragorn knelt on a stone, ear pressed to the hard rock. 

'What are you doing?' 

Gimli asked innocently. Wrong move. Aragorn roared back at him, face still plastered to the stone. 

'Fool! Be silent! I am listening for the orcs' footsteps' 

'I can hear them _without_ my head on the stupid stone,' scolded Lara, who, to her great chagrin, was still with them. 

'They have picked up the pace.' 

'What pace?' asked Gimli stupidly. 

'Hurry!' cried Aragorn, a tad more astute. 

They hurried. 

*  
  
Legolas, being the elf, was a fast runner. Lara, being Lara, was a fast runner. Aragorn, being a mere mortal, was not such a fast runner, but Gimli, having more or less no legs, was not a runner at all. Needless to say, he was at the end of the four, puffing, panting and drooling at... Someone in the front. 

* 

Aragorn and Gimli glumly stood at the top of a big cliff, too big, and peered all the way down. Two dust blurs in the distance indicated that Lara and Legolas were having yet another race (and neither was winning). 

'For two days,' puffed Gimli, 'with no food or rest or any sign of our (puff) quarry in sight (puff) while (puff) one (pant) bare (puff) rock (puff puff) can tell.' 

'I hate elves,' growled Aragorn, 'and humans.' Neither realized his mistake. 

'Toss me.' 

'What?!' 

'I said, toss me! I can't run so far.' 

Aragorn stared disbelievingly at Gimli, then shrugged. 

'One thing. Don't tell Lara,' added Gimli quickly. 

Aragorn grimaced, (or rather, smiled) and got behind Gimli. Cocking his leg, he gave Gimli a good hard kick in the pants. 

*  
  
Frodo looked dolefully at Sam. It's after supperises, Sam, and we've missed second breakfast, pre-lunch, third tea-' 

Same joined in. 

'And first dinner, and supper, and elevensies.' 

Sam sniffled. Frodo, being the hero, fished for Sam's pack. He rummaged and produced ten more packets of lembas (Lembus, not Lembas, sorry. Lothlorien produced a new brand while Lara had been there to corrupt their kitchens. So LEMBUS.) Sam unwrapped the first piece of Lembus bread, frowning. Lembas bread, the kind he _knew_, was a light tan. Lembus, the kind he was holding, was _brown_. Gingerly, he snapped a piece and chewed on it. 

'Fwodo, thish ishn't 'Emmas bread.' 

He swallowed/ 

'It's... _chocolate_ lembus bread.' 

Frodo opened another pack. 

'Vanilla lembus bread... 

'Raspberry...' 

'Fruity-tooty...' 

'Tropical pineapple...' 

'Caramel...' 

'This is Coke flavoured... What's _coke?_' 

'Cheese.' 

'Lembas bread Lembus bread...' 

'Same, what's this?' 

Sam took a bite. 

'A bit like tomatoes.' 

Today's modern world will know and love it as ketchup. 

'So, what were we eating just now?' 

'I think that was school-dinner lembus bread.' 

* 

The two front-runners were now legging it about four hundred metres in front of Aragorn, who was about six hundred metres in front of Gimli. The One Kilometre Team of hunters thus forged their way across the plains of Rohan. Gimli tumbled down yet another small mound as they went, puffing and panting like a radioactive snap-dragon with a severe case of constipation while repeating his unending mantra of 'breathe, just keep breathing' over and over to himself. Aragorn was... further up, mumbling about the stupidity of Lara and the stubbornness of Legolas as the two pelted across the plain in front of hem at a nearly break-neck speed ahead of him. 

'Slow down, please slow down, or we'll be at Isengard in less than four hours!' 

Lara and Legolas ignored him, and were now proceeding to yell at one another. 

'Stop!' 

'You stop!' 

'We *both* stop!' 

'Then you stop first!' 

'You stop first!' 

So on, so forth. Suddenly, Lara stopped, so Legolas stopped, so Aragorn stopped and so Gimli, more or less dropped. The loud thuds of many hooves beating the ground could be heard. Legolas threw Lara into the nearest cover, in this case a thornberry bush. She was followed by Aragorn, then a disgruntled and tossed Gimli, then finally Legolas himself. 

Inside the bush... 

'Why, of _all_ places, did you have to choose a _thornberry _bush?' 

Aragorn peeped up after the horses had passed by, noticing the raised standard as one of Rohirric design. 

'R I D E R S O F R-----------------------O H A ---------------------- N! W-H-A-T-N-E-W-S-O-F-T-H-E-R-I-D-D-E-R-M-A-R-K-?' 

The head rider turned his spear, nearly impaling the one nearest to him in the process, then the entire regiment turned a full three-sixty and thus surrounded them. 

'What business does a man, and elf, a dwarf and a woman have in the Riddermark? Speak quickly!' 

Gimli, the ever ignorant one, went on to say... 

'Give me your name, horse-master, and I'll give you mine.' 

Eomer dismounted and walked up to Gimli, staring down the considerable distance at him. 

'I would cut off your head, _dwarf_ if it stood a little higher off the ground.' 

This caused Legolas to draw bow. 

'You would die before your sword fell!' 

Aragorn sighed, pressing down the bow and whispering. 

'U-dago hon, mellon, saes.' [Don't kill him, friend, please.] 

Turning back, he said, 

'I am Aragorn II, son of Arathorn II, son of Arador, son of Argonui, son or Arathorn, son of Arassuil, son of Arahad II, son of Aravorn, son of Aragost, son of Arahad, son of Araglas, son of Aragorn, son of Aravir, son of Aranuir, son of Arahael, son of Aranarth, son of Arvedui, son of Araphant, son of Araval, son of Arveleg II, son of Arvegil, son or Argeleb II, son of Araphor, son of Arveleg, son of Argeleb, son of Malvegil, son of Celebrindor, son of Celepharn, son of Mallor, son of Beleg, son of Amlaith, son of Earendur, son of Elendur, son of Valandur, son of Tarondor, son of Tarcil, son of Arantar, son of Eldacar, of of Valandil who was son of Isildur, son of Elendil. My companions are Legolas of the Mirkwood realm, son of Thranduil who was son of Oropher... son of... Somebody, Gimli, son of Gloin, son of Groin, son of Farin, son of Borin, son of Nain II, son of Oin, son of Gloin, son of Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Nain, son of Durin VI who was of direct decent of Durin the Deathless of the first age. Lara Croft is our last compainion in our quest. We track a band of Uruk-Hai westward across the plains, they have captured two of our friends. We come from Lothlorien, also known as Laurelindorenan, where Galadriel, daughter of Finarfin son of-' 

Legolas whacked Aragorn on the head as he smoothly intercepted his friend before he could say "Finwe" and begin reciting more than half of the entire existing Elven lineage lines and stepped in. 

'I apologize for my rather long winded friend. He is rather... elaborative on his history. We-' 

Eomer cut him off. 

'You come from Laurelindorenan? Therein lies a witch!' 

This really, _really_ pissed Gimli off. 

'You do not insult the Lady Galadriel!' 

This caused an axe to be attracted to Eomer, which caused Eomer's sword to lie on Gimli's head, which caused Legolas' bow to point to Eomer's head. Lara sighed. 

'Will you, horse-idiot, not diss Galadriel so that Gimli will not diss you for dissing Galadriel and so that Legolas will not diss you for dissing Gimli who dissed you for dissing Galadriel who was dissed by you so now results in Gimli dissing you for dissing her?' 

Oh boy. Aragorn was going to be answerable for a _lot_. 


	20. Dim Sum Boiler

::Horsies::

Disclaimer: Disclaimer what, disclaimer?

A/N: Blah blah. It's me again. Clarenova. Whee! Sorry for the long wait, but here it is.. Blah blah.

*

The Uruk-Hai were piggy-backing two hobbits and a human, all disgruntled off towards Isengard.

'Alex! Alex!' shouted Pippin,

'The brooch! Throw down the brooch!'

'But it's shiney! NO!' yelled Alex despairingly

'Mine! Mine own! My precioussssss! I can sell that for at least two grand on the black market back home!'

Merry kicked him in the groin.

'IDIOT! DROP IT!'

'Mweep. I'm dropping it, I'm dropping it.'

He dropped it. The Uruk Hai did not notice. Stamp stamp stamp.

'My brooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooochhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'

((aka Emyn Muil Gollum style)

* 

Lara stared her stare of impending doom at Aragorn, which resembled, to the Dunadan's mind, his foster father when he was mad at him. Still staring at the to-be King of Gondor and Arnor, she ground out at Eomer.

'We're chasing a fricking pack of-', cocking an eyebrow at Aragorn, Lara waited for the unfamiliar term to come from him,

'Uruk-hai', said Aragorn, pushing Lara behind him and taking charge.

'Two frigging hobbits,' muttered Lara in annoyance, which Aragorn pointedly decided to ignore. He continued.

'We track a band of Uruk-Hai westward across the plains. They have taken two of our friends captive.'

Eomer looked slightly confused, shaking his head.

'The Uruks are destroyed. We slaughtered them during the night.'

Gimli looked desperate, not wishing Lara to think that her travels with Legolas had all been in vain. Both the elf and the human were turning an alarming shade of red, and Eomer took a considerable step away from them.

'But there were two Hobbits, do you see two Hobbits with them?'

Aragorn butted in, trying to save the by then completely overwhelmed Eomer.

'They would be small, only children to your eyes.'

Eomer, still looking as if he had be pelted on the head with a shield, shook his head dumbly again.

'We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them.'

The horse-lord pointed off into the distance, where the Uruk-hai pile was still merrily smoking. Whee.

Gimli stared at Eomer disbelievingly while edging away from Lara and Legolas.

'They are dead?'

Eomer paused briefly, then nodded. Lara shouted in rage and Legolas began to turn purple, and was clutching his by then unsheathed white knife very, very tightly. Eomer, confused as he was, knew when to make haste. Knowing his life was at stake, he mumbled out condolences and quickly delivered.

'I am sorry. Hasufel! Arod!'

Two riderless horses came up, whinnying and snickering slightly. Legolas decided to let off his knife and proceeded to stroke the white horse's muzzle gently while cursing in Elvish. Eomer knew he had to make it or break it. Aragorn was pawing Anduril and Gimli had not loosed his axe either.

'Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It is forsaken these lands. Good luck in finding you needed... Carcasses.'

As the four walkers looked at him, ready to kill, he hurried back onto his horse, mounting and shouting to the riders with him.

'We ride north!'

Eomer and gang went at a gallop for the rest of the way until he was certain the purple looking blond elf could not hit him with an arrow.

'I am heavier than you, Legolas. I shall take Hasufel. Come, Gimli.'

Gimli, seeing the trick, allowed himself to be boosted onto the horse, even though he had a rather... potent dislike for the equine. Legolas was left with Arod, the white horse, and a very pissed off Lara. It was hard to see who was madder.

'Bloody hell'

*

'Where is Legolas?" Gimli asked. Aragorn was pissed off. It was the twelfth time the *dwarf* had asked him that question.

'Behind us.', he growled. Gimli turned back as far as his position would allow him to

'I don't see him'

'*WHAT*?' Aragorn immediately checked the reins of his horse, causing it to screech to a halt..

...

Literally. Gimli almost fell off. Lara swore as *her* horse almost crashed into Hasufel, which caused Legolas to *accidentally* shove her off Arod's back, over Arod's neck and thus towards the general direction of the ground. Poor Arod..

'Bloody hell.'

*

Aragorn was munching happily on his Lembas (C) Lothlorien, talking animated to Gimli about all the dwarven axes he had seen. They were arguing about long and short handles, contentedly oblivious to the warfare going on behind them.

'Legolas!' Aragorn called, still not looking backwards. A very exasperated "Yes!?" sounded straight back to him.

'Have some Lembas bread!'

Still not looking backwards, Aragorn shoved his hand into the jumble of Lembus and Lembas bread(s) and randomly flung one in the general direction of Arod, and thus Legolas' head. The elf was knocked out could by a Chocolate/Tootie-Fruitty cross mix of Lembus bread (caused by when Haldir accidentally walked into the kitchen and tipped the fruittie-tootie into the chocolate saucepan. This happened to occur when Galadriel was making the Lembus, and thus was sentenced to eat his cross-mix bread with his brothers for three months after. Somehow or another, the cross-mix still made it out of the kitchens. I wonder.).

'Bloody hell.'

You're riding at around 25 km/h and the lembus is coming at around 30 km/h...oof.

*

Aragorn, Legolas, Lara and Gimli rode towards the burning carcasses. Falling off Hasufel, Gimli thus proceeded to sift through the smouldering pile, from which he retrieved a charred belt and dagger sheath. Legolas recognized it as Pippin's.   
Gimli stared sadly through his bushy eyebrows, commenting.

'It's one of their little belts.'

Legolas closed eyes, muttering.

'Hyn hîdh ab 'wanath. It's not _fair_, I tell you.' [They find peace after death.]

Aragorn smartly went to kick an Uruk helmet, successfully breaking his toe in the process. Causing him to jump around on one foot howling. Legolas and Lara had to pin him down and take a charred bit of mental and bind his toe back together. The poor elf nearly died at the stench of the four month old sock the ranger was wearing. Lara was smiling smugly, knowing that his senses were... what say you, slightly more acute than hers.

Gimli, ever the oblivious one, sadly gazed down at a Uruk head.

'We failed them.'

*

One Not-That-Broken toe later, Aragorn managed to get around to noticing some tracks. Aragorn crawled away off to the side as something caught his eye.

'A Hobbit lay here, and the other. A human was squatting here.'

Muttering her breath as Lara gazed at the more or less squashed area of burnt grass, she commented,

'Who do you think you are, Pocahontas? Everything looks more or less bashed, beaten and bloody to me.'

[Flashback: Pippin yelled as he looked up, a pair of thrashing hooves about to bear down on him and try to disembowel his currently intact digestive system.. He rolled over just in time as Alex jumped up to steal a pretty looking copper adornment off the saddle.]

Aragorn continued his staring at burnt grass process.

'They crawled...'

Lara shook her head.

'Wow, how did you guess?'

'And cut their bonds.'

[ Merry and Pippin crawled frantically away from the battle as they waited for Alex to stop pinching random bits off dead and alive alike. In the end, they took up their recently cut bonds and fastened a collar and leash around Alex to pull him along.

'Hurry up, Alex!'

'Good boy, Alex, good boy!'

'Heel, Alex, heel!'

'Good Alex! Have a decapitated orc, Alex, good boy!.]

[The pack of Uruk-hai plowed on, stomping everything in sight. Merry frantically yanked on Alex's leash as they tried to get away with body parts still intact. Alex, however, was intent on getting a Riddermark emblem made of silver off Eomer's horse.

'Hurry up, Alex!'

'Heel, boy, heel!']

'They ran over here and were followed, by... By... By something...'

The hobbits and Alex ran away from the battle scene, dodging under a horse (in Alex's case, bumping his head on it's stomach and very nearly lifting it off the ground) and trying to stay out of harms way. As they fled, Grishnákh, hairy orc of Mordor, grabbed Pippin by his belt and clung on desperately. 'The belt! Drop the belt!' Alex, not keen on loosing another valuable item, stamped on Grishnákh's hand. 'We steal from you, not the other other way around!' The human managed to grab Grishnákh's gauntlet in the process. Unfortunately, Grishnákh managed to pull Pippin's belt off anyway. Alex whined as the hobbits pulled him back down to the ground. 'But I wants its! Its mines! My owns! My precioussssssss!']

Aragorn began sniffing the ground like a hunting dog as Legolas watched on in amusement. Lara took out a Polaroid from her back pack (courtesy of the Voice) and began snapping pictures of the future king. Blackmail, my dear, blackmail. Legolas and Gimli both received Polariods from her, and soon all three were cackling and snapping as many pictures of the dog-human as possible. Oblivious, Aragorn sniffed on.

'Tracks lead away from the battle, into... Fangorn Forest.'

Snap. The Polariods zoomed into Fangorn. Looking through the lens in aw, Gimli gaped.

'Fangorn! What madness drew them there?'

*

The hobbits strayed into Fangorn Forest with _their_ own personal Dog-Human, now available in two version: Alex and Aragorn. Buy one, get one free. Washing and laundering and shaving not including. Grooming is not necessary. Pippin yanked impatiently on the leash.

'Did we lose him? I think we lost him'.

Grishnákh burst through the branches, brandishing a blade and pawing his arm where his gauntlet was missing.

'I'm gonna rip off both your little heads and your... big head. Come here!'

Merry shouted,

'Trees! Climb a tree!'

Pippin and Merry each scrambled up a tree, dropping the dog leash in the process. Alex looked left, looked right, looked up, and looked at Grishnákh. Looking weakly around for any means of escape, Alex reluctantly hefted up his gauntlet.

'You want it back? Only half price. Three grand, it's a great deal, come on, I know you want it!'

Grishnákh growled at him. Alex swallowed.

'You know what, free gift.'

The human flung the dirty black thing at Grishnákh's head and bolted up the tree with Pippin in it, most unfortunately snagging his leash on various branches in the process. Merry looked around after a bit.

'He's gone.'

Suddenly, Merry felt his leg being pulled to the ground. Grishnákh leaned over him with his menacing blade waving around. Pippin wanted to shout, if it had not been for the fact that his tree had somehow acquired eyes, arms and legs, not to mention life, while he was not looking.

'Ahhhhhh! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'

Screaming, Pippin lost his grip.

Grishnákh stared down his non-existent nose at Merry.

'Hey! Let's put a maggot-hole in your belly.'

Suddenly Grishnákh sensed something behind him was amiss. As he looks up a tree squashed him. Pippin, still screaming, yelled,

'Run, Merry! It's a walking tree!'

Treebeard plucked Merry up, staring at him like one would stare at a piece of Sushi that looked more than a few weeks old.

'Little Orcs!'

Pippin stared at Treebeard, commenting on the obvious.

'It's talking Merry. The tree is talking!'

Treebeard looked vaguely insulted, if a talking tree could _look_ insulted in the first place.

'Tree? I am no tree! I am an Ent.'

Merry gasped as realization dawned finally in his peanut sized brain. Alex looked at Treebeard, wondering if he could smuggle the ten metre tall tree into a suitcase and sell it back home to a freak show four four billion dollars.

'Treeherder! Shepherd of the forest. Talking tree!'

'Don't talk to it Merry. Don't encourage it. It looks hungry. Hey wait. _I'm_ hungry.'

'Pippin!'

Treebeard looked... amused.

'Treebeard some call me, and others Fangorn. Now that you come, I'm known as a talking tree.'

Pippin, in an adamant display of oxymoronic intellect, asked,

'And whose side are you on?'

'Side? I am on nobody's side. Because nobody is on my side, little Orc. Nobody cares for the woods anymore.'

Alex piped up.

'I do! I do know we need to cut down more trees to make more paper!'

The grip around his waist tightened considerably. Merry tried to salvage the conversations.'

'We are not Orcs. We are Hobbits! Well, two of us are.'

'Hobbits? Never heard of a Hobbit before. Sounds like Orc mischief to me. They come with fire, they come with axes. They come with swords, they come with daggers! They come with bows, they come with arrows, but they do not come with batteries!' Here Treebeard looked at Alex's uzi. 'Some of them come with metal wands! Biting, breaking, hacking, burning, bashing, beating, stamping, stomping, boxing, banging and blasting. Destroyers and usurpers, cowards and fiends. Enemies and foes, torturers and antagonists. Curse them, crush them, beat them, bash them!'

Merry looked desperate.

'No! You don't understand. We are Hobbits, halflings. Shirefolk! Hole-dwellers! Fat-people!'

'Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't, maybe you were, maybe you were not. The White Wizard will know, even though the blue wizards won't.'

'White Wizard?'

Merry paled.

'Saruman!'

'Saru-who?'

'Nevermind_, _Alex!'

*

Sam, throwing bits of lembus bread around, commented,

'Mordor. The one place in Middle Earth we don't want to see any closer. It's the one place we are trying to get to. It's just where we can't get, because, well because we can't get to it. Let's face it Mr. Frodo. We're lost. I don't think Gandalf meant for us to come this way.'

'He didn't mean for a lot of things to happen, Sam. But they did. Like dying.'

Suddenly Frodo felt the Eye zoom in on him. He gasped and panted as he backed away like a radioactive rhino with a severe respiratory problem.

'Frodo? It's the Ring isn't it? Or is it your long recurring asthma problem.'   
  
'It's getting heavier, Sam.'

'What's getting heavier? Your pot belly?'

Frodo glared at Sam and pointed to the innocent looking gold band.

'The _Ring_, Sam, the RING.'

*

Sam stood up and surveyed their surroundings after their trek.

'This looks strangely familiar. I think we've seen it four hundred times before.

'That's because we've been here before! We are going in circles!'   
  
'Ah! What's that 'horrid stink? I'll warrant there's a nasty bog nearby. Or maybe one of Aragorn's socks. Can you smell it?'

'Yes I can smell it, and I wish I couldn't. We are not alone.'   
  
Later that night, Gollum sneaked up nearer to the hobbits as he Spider-Man-ed about the rock.

'Those thievesssssssss! Those filthy little thievesssssssss! Wheeere issssssssit? Wheeere isssssssit? They sssssstole it from ussssss. My precioussssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.'

Suddenly the hobbits sprang up, grabbed hold of Gollum's arms and pulled him down with them. Shrieking amidst the struggle, Gollum wriggled loose and leapt onto Frodo. As Frodo fell back, the chain and Ring around his neck revealed itself to Gollum, who jumped straight for it. Sam tried to grab at ex-Smeagol, but got knocked off as Gollum tripped over one bundle of Lembus bread. Gollum now jumped on top of Frodo and tried to reach for the Ring as his hands were pulled back. Gollum's cheeks puffed with exertion as he struggled with Frodo, his huge eyes fixed on the Ring. Sam grabbed hold of Gollum again and tore him away from Frodo. Gollum then turned around and bit Sam on the shoulder. Sam shriek.

'Vampire! You IDIOT! Come'er!'

Sam resorted to desperate measures and went for the steaming pot. Those in the Asian region would know and hate it as the Dim-Sum boiler. One "bong" later, and Gollum was flat on his back with Frodo on top of him.

'This is Sting. You've seen it before, haven't you, Gollum!'

Gollum's wails echoed through Emyn Muil.

'My preeeeeeeeeeciiiiiiiiiiiiouuuuuuuuuusssssssssssss! The evil, evil poooooooooooooooooot!'

*

After a round of _hithlain_ rope...

*   
Gollum renewed his shrieks.

'It burns! It burns us! Take it off!'

Sam looked in disdain at the writhing... er.. Thing.

'Quiet you! It's hopeless! Every Orc in Mordor will hear this racket! Let's tie him up and leave him!'

'No! That's will kill us, kill us!

'It's nothing more than you deserve!'

'Maybe he does deserve to die. Now that I've seen him, I do pity him. And you boiler.'

'We be nice to them, if they be nice to us. Take it off us. We swears to do what you wants. We swears!'

Frodo glared at him.

'There is no promise you can make that I can trust.'

'We swears to serve the master of the precioussss. We swears on, on the precioussss! Gollum. Gollum.'

'The Ring is treacherous. It will hold you to your word. And Sam's boiling pot.'

'Yes... on the preciouss... on the preciousss. Just keep the fat hobbit away from me!'

'I don't believe you! Get down! Get down! I'm _not_ fat!'

'Sam! You are fat!'

Sam desperately tried to change the subject.

'He was trying to trick us! We let him go, he'll throttle us into our sleep!'

Frodo took pity on Sam and turned on Gollum

'You know the way to Mordor?'

'Yes...'

'You've been there before?'

'Yes...'

'You will lead us to the Black Gate.'

'Yes...'

'And Sam _is_ fat...'

'Yes...'   
  



	21. Gandalf the Skittles

a/n: So sorry. We've procrastinated long enough. We were probably sugar high the last time we tried; it involved a singing Legolas. And singing Aragorn. Singing Gimli. Singing Lara. Well, never mind that. Here we are! 

::Gandalf the Skittles:: 

So, Gollum was leading the hobbits to the Black Gate. The Big Ominous Black Gate. That Was Far Away Down A Big Rocky Hill. That Crumbled Like Apple… Crumble. Gollum skidded around quite artistically. Sam and Frodo merely flailed, falling over more than once. 

~*~ 

The polaroids clicked rapidly as Gimli poked a nearby tree tentatively. Legolas shot him a death glare. 'Do not harm the trees!' 

Lara muttered darkly, 'Eco-boy.' 

Aragorn smirked, but said, 'Legolass, I mean, Legolas, is right. These trees are dangerous. 

Gimli gulped. 'And we have to go in there?' 

Aragorn cast a casual look at the dark, ominous, dangerous forest and shrugged. 'Well, yes.' 

'It's just trees, you cads. But since no one will follow me…' Lara hitched her pack on her shoulders and disappeared into the trees. A moment later, gunfire shots rang out like thunder. 

'Lara!' screamed Gimli in a very girly way. He ran in. 

'The trees!' screamed Legolas in a very girly way. He ran in. 

'Don't leave me here! Help!' screamed Aragorn in a very girly way. He ran in. The gunfire continued. 

Eventually they all managed to find one another in approximately the same place. About half the trees were missing branches or at least a few leaves. It was considerably less dark, which seemed to cheer Aragorn up, though he was mumbling something about nightlights. A few petrified birds flopped around, but nothing else seemed to be hurt. 

Except maybe Legolas. 

Legolas sobbed hysterically, clutching what looked like a battered leaf to his chest, shoulders heaving magnificently. Lara gaped. Aragorn went over to pat the elf on the shoulder. 'What happened?' 

Legolas stuttered, still disorientated. 'Look! A leaf! And it's... dead!' He glared at Gimli, tears glimmering in his eyes. "Gimli! What is the meaning of this?" 

Gimli shuffled uncomfortably and wiped what looked like chlorophyll off the head of his axe. "Umm… I was rescuing the lady from the killer plants." 

Lara rolled her eyes extravagantly. 'It's a leaf, for crying out loud! Leaves live, leaves die!' 

Legolas still mumbled incoherently to himself. 'But this a different leaf! A special leaf! A leaf... A leaf that will never taste the sweet wind or feel the sunlit caresses above the canopy again!' 

It would have been rather touching if a stray falling branch hadn't hit him on the head at that precise moment. 

Legolas swayed giddily, mumbling about leaves. 

Aragorn looked dubiously up at the dense foliage and wondered if that special leaf had ever seen light in the first place. Lara took the leaf out of the elf's hand and tossed it onto the ground, where it joined approximately twenty-one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight million other special, wind-tasted, sun-kissed leaves. Legolas stirred the debris madly on his hands and knees for a bit, but unable to find the leaf, shrugged and stood up. 

As suddenly as he had broken down crying, Legolas shot up from his foetal position on the ground so quickly that he hit his head on another branch, this time a low-lying branch. The branch broke. Before the elf could go into hysterics again, Lara pushed him forward. 'You're the one with the brilliant eyes. See something!' 

Ears twitching, Legolas edged forward like a overgrown version of Lassie. Aragorn crept up next to him with all the discretion of a drunken elephant, ruining any chance of stealth that Legolas had and whispered - I mean shouted - into the elf's ear, 'LEGOLAS! MAN CENICH?' (Legolas, what do you see?') 

Legolas, ears still in radar-mode, shot suspicious glances about until he spotted a bright, and very obvious white light. 'The White Wizard approaches.' Lara wanted to say something witty in reply, but Aragorn forced everyone to freeze. Gimli stayed stuck with one foot in the air because the ranger would not let him put it down. 

'We must not let him cast a spell upon us. Quickly!' 

'Quickly_ what_?" snapped Lara, attempting to glare at him through the back of her head. 'We can't bloody move!' 

Aragorn wiggled his toes, then his fingers. He carefully tested every single one of his joints. Lara could have kicked him. He didn't speak until he had tested his jaw for the eighth time. 'I can.' 

_'That's because you told us to freeze!'_

'I did not!' roared Aragorn, wrinkling his nose to make sure it was still on, 'I would not have told you to do something so foolish as that! He has surely put a spell on us!' 

To get Aragorn moving, she kicked him. Hard. Somewhere… that hurts. She casually stepped on a leaf and Legolas yelped. Gimli, being the last in the group, had been secretly moving around anyway. 

With a yell, the three swung round to attack in accord. They were suddenly blinded by a bright light from behind the White Wizard. Gimli's axe and Legolas' arrow were deflected. Lara's bullet and the arrow, ironically, embedded themselves in a nearby tree. Aragorn's sword became too hot to hold, and he dropped it, squealing. 

A voice boomed. "You are tracking the footsteps of two young hobbits." 

"That sounds like Gandalf," commented Gimli. 

Legolas smacked him on the head. "Gandalf is dead!" 

Lara poked around in her bottomless bag, retrieving her red-tinted sunglasses. She jammed them on. "It's Gandalf," she confirmed. 

"Gandalf is dead!" 

"Where are the hobbits?" Aragorn shouted above the din. 

Gimli gaped, mouth wide open. Lara kicked him. 'Oooh, I wonder who THAT could be.' 

Aragorn, ignorant to the fact that Lara had already identified the Shining Attacker as Gandalf shouted, 'Who are you? Show yourself!' 

Gandalf, in all his glory, beauty, light, whiteness, gray tintedness, blue-eyed wiseness, majesty, one of the istar, one of the ainur, one of the wizards etc etc stepped out and stopped shining. Aragorn gasped like a chicken being asphyxiated. 

'It cannot be! You fell!' 

Lara snorted. 'Yeah, when people get thrown off bridges, they tend to do that.' Aragorn ignored her. Gandalf ignored her. Gandalf proceeded to shift into a tone of voice that is generalized by grandfathers everywhere who know they have captured they prey - I mean grandchildren - and proceed to wring all sense of time from them by recalling a story longer than the Nile from 1824. 

Gandalf cleared his throat importantly. 'From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him,-' 

Gimli stupidly butted in, 'Who?' Gandalf shot him a warning glance, 'The balrog of MORGOTH!' 

Crickets chirped. Lara looked impatiently at the wizard, who was standing there as if expecting people to throw flowers at him and break down in tears. 'Is that supposed to mean something?' 

Gandalf, quelled, shot her a glance, 'You are too young to understand.' He went on. 'Until at last, I threw down my enemy and SMOTE his ruin upon the mountainside. Darkness took me. And I strayed OUT OF thought and time. Stars WHEELED overhead and each day was as LONG as a LIFE age of the earth. But it was NOT the end. I felt life in me... AGAIN! I've been sent back until my task is done.' 

Gimli was now hero-worshipping Gandalf while Lara glared impassively at him. 'Aw, icckle Gandy got sent back to finish his homework!' 

Gandalf was now under the pretense that Lara was invisible. Aragorn looked scared. 'Gandalf.' 

Gandalf looked at him. 'Gandalf. Yes. That was what they used to call me.' 

Lara smirked, 'No kidding.' 

Gandalf dramatically increased the tone of his voice, 'That was MY name.' 

Gimli sobbed, 'GANDALF!' 

Lara looked bewildered. So Gandalf's name was Gandalf. They knew that. 

Gandalf went on, 'I am Gandalf the White now -' 

Lara stuck her head in, 'but you are still Gandalf, was Gandalf, are Gandalf, and most obviously will always be Gandalf.' She paused. "You ever heard that joke? So when you're embarrassed, you're Gandalf the Red; when you're sad, you're Gandalf the Blue; when you're sick, you're Gandalf the Green; when you're being strangled, you're Gandalf the Purple…" 

Gandalf the Currently-White snorted. "Gandalf will suffice." He stuck his chin up in the air as an illusion of dignity. "One stage of your journey is over, another begins. War has come to Rohan. We must ride to Edoras with all speed." 

He stepped into the pile of leaves. 

Legolas' shrilling must have killed the rest of the foliage. 

~*~ 

As Frodo the Magnificent skidded his way down to Magnificently stuck Sam, two Easterlings walked up. Frodo hurridly threw the cloak over them both. 

"Hmm, that's a big rock," said Easterling One. 

"You're right! Burr, that rock almost looks HUMAN!" said Easterling Two. 

"You, er, you, idioc? Idiof? Idiot!, Yes, right, you idiot!" said Easterling One. 

"Why? Buh, but, but why?" said Easterling Two. 

"Cause, cause, cause rocks can't be humans!" said Easterling One. 

Frodo nearly fell asleep. 

"Then can humans be rocks?" said Easterling Two. 

"But if rocks can't be humans, then, then, burrr, I suppose humans can't be rocks!" said Easterling One. 

"Burr, okay then. But I can almost see an arm there." Said Easterly Two. 

"Nah, must be your... your... Eye-Que, that's it. It's too low." Said Easterling One. 

Frodo heaved a sigh/yawn as the Easterlings walked off. "I do not ask you to come with me, Sam." 

"I know, Mr. Frodo." He sighed. _What an idiot I was._

They proceeded to head in the most suicidal direction – in plain sight. Until they were tackled and dragged back underneath Frodo's unending cloak. 

"No! No! No master! They catch you! They catch you. Don't take it to Him. He wants the precioussss. Always he's looking for it. And the preciousss is wanting to go back to him, but we musn't let him have it." 

"Is this a slumber party?" mumbled Sam, face squashed down to the ground. 

"No! There is another way. More secret, a dark way." 

Sam spat out a mouthful of earth. "Why haven't you spoken of this before?! " 

"Because master did not ask! " 

"He is up to something," Said Sam instantly. 

Frodo looked balefully at Sam. 'He's led us this far, Sam.' Sam sulked. Gollum happily pranced about. Frodo sighed, wishing he had a leash. 

Sam's expression suggested that he wished to squash the madly skipping creature into one of his pots. 

'Lead the way, Gollum...' 

~*~ 

Gandalf balanced precariously on the saddle-less back of the Fax Machine, which was whimpering slightly under the abuse that was being wrent on his mane. 'Edoras and the GOLDEN hall of Meduseld. There dwells Theoden, King of Rohan.' 

Lara looked appraisingly at the structure. 'Looks like a big, thatched barn to me.' 

~*~ 

On the inside, Eowyn clutched her uncle's arm tightly, but not too tightly, because there was a good chance that it would fall of if she did. 'Uncle? Uncle?' 

'Ueuuhh?' 

'You son is dead, uncle.' 

'Ueuhh?' 

'Theodred is dead.' 

'Ueuhh? 

'Your son, my lord, he is dead. My lord? Uncle? Will you not go to him?' Without hope, she whispered, 'will you do nothing?' 

'Ueuhh.' 

~*~ 

Outside the enormous thatched barn, Gandalf beckoned to the others. 'Be careful what you say. Do not look for welcome here.' 

Lara just sighed. 


End file.
